#IRIS PRO 4 PC#

This is absolutely the right direction for mobile SoCs going forward and I expect Intel will try something similar with its low power smartphone and tablet silicon in the next 18 - 24 months. Intel did the right thing with making Crystalwell an L4 cache. While the 50GB/s bi-directional link is clearly enough in many situations, that's not always the case. I would also like to see an increase in bandwidth to Crystalwell. It's also possible that greater pixel throughput would be useful as well but that's a bit more difficult to say at this point. It needs more texture hardware per sub-slice to remain competitive with NVIDIA.

Intel clearly has some architectural (and perhaps driver) work to do with its Gen7 graphics. And all of this should come at a much lower power/thermal profile compared to the current IVB + GT 650M combination. Just because it's not as fast as a discrete GPU doesn't mean that it's not a very good integrated graphics solution. Iris Pro should also be competent enough to make modern gaming possible on the platform as well. Intel's HD 4000 comes close, and I suspect Iris Pro will completely negate the need for a discrete GPU for non-gaming use in OS X.

#IRIS PRO 4 PC#

Without a doubt, gaming focused notebooks will have to stick with discrete GPUs - but what about notebooks like the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display? I have a dedicated PC for gaming, I use the rMBP for work and just need a GPU that's good enough to drive everything else in OS X.

Combine that with the fact that you get all of this in a thermal package that a mainstream discrete GPU can't fit into and this all of the sudden becomes a more difficult decision for an OEM to make.

While Iris Pro isn't the fastest GPU on the block, it is significantly faster than any other integrated solution and does get within striking distance of the GT 650M in many cases. Lower thermal requirements can also enabler smaller cooling solutions, leading to lighter notebooks. Presumably that delta would disappear with the use of Iris Pro instead. In our 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display review we found that simply having the discrete GPU enabled could reduce web browsing battery life by ~25%. From speaking with OEMs, Iris Pro seems to offer substantial power savings in light usage (read: non-gaming) scenarios. Iris Pro on the other hand has its TDP shared by the rest of the 47W Haswell part. The GT 650M is a 45W TDP part, pair that with a 35 - 47W CPU and an OEM either has to accept throttling or design a cooling system that can deal with both. Where Iris Pro is dangerous is when you take into account form factor and power consumption. OpenCL performance is excellent, which is surprising given how little public attention Intel has given to the standard from a GPU perspective. Haswell doesn't pose any imminent threat to NVIDIA's position in traditional gaming notebooks. NVIDIA's recently announced GT 750M should increase the margin a bit as well. Intel does catch up in some areas, but that's by no means the norm. The highest performing implementation of NVIDIA's GeForce GT 650M remains appreciably quicker than Iris Pro 5200 on average. Given what we know about Iris Pro today, I'd say NVIDIA is fairly safe.

For the past few years Intel has been threatening to make discrete GPUs obsolete with its march towards higher performing integrated GPUs.

Iris pro 4