Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 vs ION 2

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the rankingnot ratednot rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
ArchitectureTesla 2.0 (2007−2013)PowerVR SGX5 (2008−2011)
GPU code nameGT218Cedar Trail
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date3 June 2008 (16 years ago)1 November 2011 (13 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores164
Core clock speed500 MHzno data
Boost clock speedno data400 MHz
Number of transistors260 millionno data
Manufacturing process technology40 nm32 nm
Power consumption (TDP)20 Wattno data
Texture fill rate4.000no data
Floating-point processing power0.03424 TFLOPSno data
ROPs4no data
TMUs8no data

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16no data
WidthIGPno data

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeSystem Sharedno data
Maximum RAM amountSystem Sharedno data
Memory bus widthSystem Sharedno data
Memory clock speedSystem Sharedno data
Shared memory-+

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display ConnectorsNo outputsno data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX11.1 (10_1)no data
Shader Model4.1no data
OpenGL3.3no data
OpenCL1.1no data
VulkanN/A-
CUDA1.2-

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.



3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

ION 2 724
+72300%
Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 1

Pros & cons summary


Recency 3 June 2008 1 November 2011
Chip lithography 40 nm 32 nm

Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 has an age advantage of 3 years, and a 25% more advanced lithography process.

We couldn't decide between ION 2 and Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that ION 2 is a desktop card while Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


NVIDIA ION 2
ION 2
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600
Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


2.8 25 votes

Rate ION 2 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
2.5 134 votes

Rate Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3600 on a scale of 1 to 5:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about this comparison, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.