Intel GMA X3000

The Intel GMA X3000 is an end-of-life integrated graphics processor from Intel, built on the Broadwater chip using a 90 nm process. It is part of the GMA Graphics-M family, specifically the GMA 3000 IGP generation, and was released in mid-2006. The data shows it occupies the 50th percentile among all GPUs, which places it in the median tier of performance, though its absolute benchmark score is zero, indicating it has no measurable compute capability in modern workloads. The unit operates with a thermal design power of just 13 W, making it an extremely low-power solution, but its performance profile is defined by severe architectural limitations rather than efficiency gains.

Benchmark Performance

The GMA X3000 has no recorded benchmark scores in the database, and its average benchmark score is exactly zero. This absence of data is telling: the GPU is not capable of executing the standardized workloads used for modern performance testing. Its pixel rate is listed at 500.0 MPixel/s, while its texture rate is 4.000 GTexel/s. These raw throughput figures are extremely low by any contemporary standard, and they translate into a device that cannot handle even basic 3D rendering tasks that would be trivial for dedicated hardware from the same era. The 50th percentile ranking is misleading in this context, it reflects the distribution of all GPUs in the database, but with a zero score, the X3000 is effectively a placeholder rather than a participant in competitive benchmarks.

The lack of any rival comparisons in the nearestRivals field further confirms its isolated position. The data indicates that there are no comparable products within a meaningful performance delta, which suggests that the X3000 is so far behind any other GPU in the database that relative percentage differences cannot be calculated. For users looking at this data, the takeaway is straightforward: the X3000 does not deliver measurable performance in any benchmark category. Its 8 texture mapping units and single render output unit are the only active processing elements, and they are clocked to produce just 4.000 GTexel/s of texture fill and 500.0 MPixel/s of pixel fill. These numbers are orders of magnitude below what even entry-level discrete GPUs of its time achieved, making it a purely functional display adapter rather than a 3D accelerator.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The X3000 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, which is consistent with its Generation 4.0 architecture that predates any hardware-accelerated ray tracing support. Its API compatibility is limited to DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0, with no Vulkan support listed. This means the GPU cannot run any modern graphical workloads that rely on DirectX 11 or higher, nor can it access Vulkan-based rendering paths. The absence of these APIs effectively locks the X3000 out of any game or application released after roughly 2010. For hardware-accelerated ray tracing, the data shows zero support: no dedicated cores exist, and the architecture has no mechanism for executing the bounding volume hierarchy traversal or ray-triangle intersection tests that such workloads require.

The feature set is further constrained by the absence of tensor cores, which eliminates any possibility of AI-accelerated features like DLSS or machine learning-based upscaling. The X3000 is purely a fixed-function rasterizer from an era before these technologies were conceived. Its DirectX 9.0c support means it can handle pixel shader 3.0 and vertex shader 3.0, but nothing beyond that. OpenGL 2.0 support is similarly dated, offering only the fixed-function pipeline and early programmable shading. The display output is listed as "Portable Device Dependent," which means the actual connectors and resolutions supported are determined by the laptop or motherboard it is integrated into, rather than by the GPU itself. This dependency makes the X3000 unsuitable for any desktop use case where a standardized display interface is required.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is entirely system-dependent, with the X3000 using shared system memory for both its frame buffer and its working set. The memory size is listed as "System Shared," the type is "System Shared," the bus width is "System Shared," and the bandwidth is "System Dependent." This means the GPU has no dedicated VRAM of its own and instead borrows from the host system's main memory. The practical consequence is that performance scales directly with the speed and capacity of the system RAM, which introduces significant variability between different platforms. A system with fast dual-channel memory will provide better performance than one with slower single-channel memory, but in all cases, the bandwidth is a fraction of what a dedicated graphics card would offer.

For high-resolution workloads, this is a crippling limitation. The "System Dependent" bandwidth means that at resolutions like 1080p or higher, the memory subsystem becomes the bottleneck almost immediately. The GPU cannot sustain the data throughput required for large frame buffers, and texture streaming from system memory introduces latency that further degrades performance. The 500.0 MPixel/s pixel rate suggests that the X3000 is only capable of filling a small fraction of a standard display buffer in a single frame. At 1920x1080, a single frame requires roughly 2 million pixels, and the X3000 would take nearly four seconds to fill that buffer at its theoretical maximum. This makes any gaming or graphical work at modern resolutions entirely impractical.

Who Should Consider It

The X3000 is not a product for anyone running modern software. Its zero benchmark score and absence of any rival comparisons indicate that it cannot execute the workloads used to evaluate GPU performance. The 13 W TDP makes it suitable for low-power embedded systems or legacy industrial applications where 3D acceleration is not required. For basic 2D desktop usage, such as text editing, spreadsheet work, or web browsing on a system from the mid-2000s, the X3000 can drive a display, but its pixel rate of 500.0 MPixel/s means even simple graphical effects like window transparency or video playback may struggle.

For gaming, the data is unequivocal: the X3000 is not viable at any resolution or settings level. The DirectX 9.0c API support means it can technically run games from its era, but the texture rate of 4.000 GTexel/s and the single render output unit limit it to the lowest detail settings at resolutions below 800x600. Even then, the system-dependency of its memory bandwidth means that performance will be inconsistent and heavily dependent on the host system's RAM configuration. Users seeking a GPU for retro gaming on period-correct hardware might find it functional, but the single ROP and 8 TMUs are insufficient for any game with moderate texture complexity. The X3000 is best considered a display output device rather than a graphics accelerator.

How It Compares

The nearestRivals field is empty, which means there is no comparative data available for the X3000 against any other GPU in the database. This is a significant finding in itself: the GPU is so far outside the performance envelope of any other listed product that the database cannot compute relative deltas. Typically, even low-end integrated GPUs have some comparable counterparts, but the X3000's zero benchmark score creates a situation where no percentage difference can be expressed. The 50th percentile ranking is therefore an artifact of the data distribution rather than a meaningful measure of competitiveness.

In the absence of direct rivals, the X3000's position can only be understood through its absolute specifications. The 90 nm process node, 13 W TDP, and system-shared memory architecture place it firmly in the low-power integrated segment. Its Generation 4.0 architecture, with 8 TMUs and 1 ROP, produces a pixel rate of 500.0 MPixel/s and a texture rate of 4.000 GTexel/s. These figures are roughly comparable to what a dedicated GPU from the early 2000s might have achieved, but the X3000 lacks the dedicated memory bandwidth that would have made such a part usable. Every aspect of its design points to a device that was intended for office productivity and basic media playback, not for any demanding graphical task. The empty rival list is thus a testament to its obsolescence: there is simply nothing else in the database that performs at this level, and no percentage delta can be calculated against a baseline of zero.