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Iris Pro is the name of the graphics silicon that is included in the Broadwell generation of processors by Intel. The Iris Pro graphics core is built into several high-end CPUs.
Iris Graphics 6100 is the ‘GT3’ revision of the integrated Broadwell graphics core. It can be found in several low-voltage SoCs like the Intel Core i5-5257U or i7-5557U. The Core i5 and Core i7 chips that use Iris Pro 6100 graphics have access to the full 48 graphics cores. The Core i3 version, on the other hand, offers just 47.
Integrated Graphics Are Alot More Powerful Than They Used to Be
Not that long ago, if you had integrated graphics, you could forget about playing anything close to a modern game on it.
In fact, back then, integrated graphics was really just the bare minimum of hardware needed to get a picture on the screen. Even things like video acceleration were rather poor.
Overall, the Iris 6100 is as fast as a GeForce 820M graphics card. That is a considerable amount of performance for a graphics chip that is literally built into the CPU.
Iris Pro 6100 is a Significant Upgrade
Also, Intel’s Iris Pro 6100 graphics hardware outperforms its last generation, the Iris Pro 5100, by up to 25%.
Less demanding and older titles like Counter-Strike: GO, Diablo III, and Dota 2 can be played fluidly at high definition resolutions and with the graphics details set to high. More demanding titles, though, will need to be run at lower resolutions with some tweaked graphics settings.
AAA Games at Playable Framerates on Low Power Hardware
Several high-end devices on the market use chips that have Iris Pro Graphics built-in. One of them is the XIDU PhilBook Y13. It’s a 2-in-1 convertible laptop that has an Intel Core i5-5257U.
The fifth-generation Core i5 5257U is quite a substantial SoC (System on Chip). It’s built on a 14-nm process node and has two 2.7Ghz cores with Hyper-Threading enabled.
So, this means the operating system sees the i5 5257U as a quad-core processor. This means you can get more out of this dual-core CPU than without Hyper-Threading enabled.
In the XIDU PhilBook Y13, an Intel Core i5 5257U is paired with 8GB of DDR4 RAM and 128GB of fast SSD storage. This combination of chips should make for a very capable and powerful computing experience.
We happen to have a Philbook Y13 on the way, so we will be putting it through its paces with a set of benchmarks. We’ll also go through a couple of real-world usage scenarios to see how it will perform as a day-to-day machine.
After that, we will be giving the Philbook Y13 away to a lucky winner. Stay tuned, the next article today will tell you how you can enter to win.
