In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Intel HD Graphics 5000 Mobile are marginally better than the Intel HD Graphics 4600 Desktop.

The Graphics 4600 has a 200 MHz higher core clock speed than the Graphics 5000, but both GPUs exhibit the same Texture Fill Rate. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The Graphics 4600 has a 200 MHz higher core clock speed than the Graphics 5000, but both GPUs exhibit the same Pixel Fill Rate. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The Graphics 4600 was released less than a year after the Graphics 5000, and so they are likely to have similar driver support for optimizing performance when running the latest games.

The HD Graphics 5000 Mobile and the HD Graphics 4600 Desktop have the same amount of video memory, but are likely to provide slightly different experiences when displaying game textures at high resolutions.

The memory bandwidth of the HD Graphics 5000 Mobile and the HD Graphics 4600 Desktop are the same, which means the Graphics 5000 and the Graphics 4600 have equal limitations when it comes to graphical data transfer.

The HD Graphics 5000 Mobile has 40 Shader Processing Units and the HD Graphics 4600 Desktop has 20. However, the actual shader performance of the Graphics 5000 is 176 and the actual shader performance of the Graphics 4600 is 100. The Graphics 5000 having 76 better shader performance and an altogether better performance when taking into account other relevant data means that the Graphics 5000 delivers a marginally smoother and more efficient experience when processing graphical data than the Graphics 4600.

The HD Graphics 5000 Mobile requires 15 Watts to run and the HD Graphics 4600 Desktop requires 88 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the Graphics 4600, but we do not have a recommended PSU wattage for the Graphics 5000. The Graphics 4600 requires 73 Watts more than the Graphics 5000 to run. The difference is significant enough that the Graphics 4600 may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the Graphics 5000.