Intel’s 5th-gen Core “Broadwell” processors may just be hitting the market, but the company plans to launch its 6th-gen chips code-named “Skylake” later this year, starting with a series of 15 watt chips aimed at laptops, tablets, and 2-in-1 systems like the reference design the folks at Mobile Geeks spotted at the Intel Developer Forum this week.
At least some of those chips could have the kind of high-performance graphics that Intel currently only offers in its 28 watt Broadwell processors.
Fudzilla reports Intel Iris graphics will be available in 15 watt Skylake-U chips.
Current Intel chips with Iris 6100 graphics offer twice the GPU performance of a system with Intel HD 5500 integrated graphics, making it possible to use a laptop with integrated graphics for some gaming (although NVIDIA and AMD still offer discrete graphics solutions that offer higher performance) as well as ultra HD video, among other things. A growing number of non-gaming tasks such as transcoding video files can also leverage a GPU to speed up certain activities.
Putting Iris graphics into a 15 watt chip opens the door for laptops and other portable devices with slightly longer battery life. But it’s more likely that we’ll see PC makers use the technology to produce devices that are thinner and lighter than today’s Iris-powered systems since the new chips will generate less heat. I’d be surprised if we see fanless laptops with Iris graphics, but it might be possible… and fanless desktops with 15 watt Skylake + Iris chips certainly seem plausible.
I’m thinking about replacing my HP pavillion circa 2011 (SandyBridge FTW!) with a new laptop with a core i5/i7 skylake processor, but I’m not sure about spending die space (and power) on a iGPU that won’t match a discrete GPU like a GTX950m. I know that not every system will include a dGPU but for those that will, wouldn’t that silicion be more usefull on larger CPUs with less throatlling.
The new fanless Broadwell devices that have a 4.5 Watt TDP are running hot without a proper cooling system, I don’t see a 15 W SoC with pasive cooling anytime soon.
There’s not a big difference between the HD5500 and HD6000. You’d think doubling the shaders would net close to double the performance but it’s 15-20% only. These theoretical numbers are pretty pointless in measuring actual use. Main difference between HD6000 and HD6100 is the TDP from 15W to 28. Would not get too excited over the current Broadwell implementations, at least not based on synthetic numbers.
Intel should add eDRAM across the line which will help in daily usage instead of tacking on more shaders. Start from 32MB. Compute is up with the increasing number of shaders but that’s not what most people use–and if they needed it, a dedicated card would offer more performance.
If you look at the ‘gflop per watt’ counter, the big jump is here.
But to be honest, this comparison is flawed because those new 15W chips don’t seem to include eDRAM enhanced iGPUs.
Compared to the last gen Iris Pro 5200,,, not a great jump.
Intel Iris Pro 5100/5200 – 1300MHz – 832 GFLOPS (peak)
well, than maybe wait until you can compare to Skylake Iris Pro. Please note: this article is about “non-Pro” Iris.