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Phrase “Intel integrated GPU” was synonymous with “terrible graphics solution” but Intel claims its integrated GPUs now equal discrete cards

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by , 01-24-2016 at 03:44 PM (1132 Views)


For more than a decade, the phrase “Intel integrated GPU” was synonymous with “terrible graphics solution.” The first Intel motherboard with integrated graphics, the i810, had terrible performance, even in 2D desktop work. The 2D graphics performance improved, but Intel’s 3D capabilities were more-or-less terrible until the launch of Sandy Bridge.

Since Sandy Bridge debuted, Intel has been much more aggressive about improving its 3D capabilities, generation-on-generation. AMD stole the GPU performance lead from Intel with its Llano APU back in 2011, but Intel has steadily chipped away at this advantage. AMD still holds an overall advantage against Intel’s desktop CPUs (as a write-up at Anandtech makes clear,) but Intel’s exact words were: “For the mainstream and casual gamer, we have improved our Iris and Iris Pro graphics tremendously. We have improved our graphics performance [by 30 times] from where it was five years ago. We believe that the performance of Intel’s integrated graphics today, what we offer in the products […], is equivalent to the performance of about 80% of discrete [GPU] installed base.”

Them’s fighting words. But is it true? As far as we can tell… no. At least, not according to Steam’s hardware survey. We ran down the list of AMD and Nvidia GPUs, counting only those cards we were certain could beat the Iris / Iris Pro in a head-to-head comparison. If Steam’s figures are accurate, AMD and Nvidia combined hold roughly 31% of the GPU market in terms of GPUs that are at least midrange discrete cards.



Part of what makes Intel’s statement tricky to evaluate, however, is that the first part of its statement depends on how you evaluate the meaning of “mainstream and casual gamer.” If that means Farmville, or equivalent Facebook-style games, then Intel is correct. I doubt there’s much difference between playing low-end titles on an Intel chip versus AMD or Nvidia these days.

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