6-2 www.hp.com Technical Reference Guide
Integrated Graphics Subsystem
6.2 Functional Description
The Intel Q45 GMCH component includes an Intel integrated Graphics Media Accelerator
(GMA) 4500 controller (Figure 6-1). The GMA 4500 operates off the internal PCIe x16 bus and
can directly drive an external, analog multi-scan monitor and a DisplayPort-compatible digital
monitor simultaneously. The GMA 4500 includes a memory management feature that allocates
portions of system memory for use as the frame buffer and for storing textures and 3D effects.
Figure 6-1. Q45-based Graphics, Block diagram
The GMA 4500 provides the following features:
■ Rapid pixel and texel rendering using four pipelines that allow 2D and 3D operations to
overlap, speeding up visual effects, reducing the amount of memory for texture storage
■ Zone rendering for optimizing 3D drawing, eliminating the need for local graphics memory
by reducing the bandwidth
■ Dynamic video memory allocation, where the amount of memory required by the application
is acquired (or released) by the controller
■ Intelligent memory management allowing tiled memory addressing, deep display buffering,
and dynamic data management
■ 400-MHz core engine
■ 350-MHz 24-bit RAMDAC
■ 2D engine supporting GDI+ and alpha stretch blithering up to 2048 x 1536 with
32-bit color @ 75 Hz refresh (QVGA)
■ 3D engine supporting Z-bias and up to 1600 x 1200 w/32-bit color @ 85 hz refresh
RGB
Q45 GMCH
GMA 4500
Controller
Monitor
(System
DDR3
PCIe x16 Graphics slot [1]
SDRAM
Controller
SDRAM
Memory)
NOTE:
[1] SFF and CMT form factors only.
DisplayPort
Monitor
Analog
Digital
Switch
ICH10
PCIe I/F
PCIe x4/x16 slot [1]
PCIe data