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Western Digital. Better onboard graphics is great for lots of things. We can't
necessarily all agree on what it's better for. I mean, some people might
go, "Oh, well, I can use uh graphics cores and Open CL to accelerate certain
content creation workloads that are more optimal on a graphics core than they are
in a CPU core." gamers might go, "Oh, well, hey, I can I can, you know, play
games like Dota 2 or League of Legends on my onboard graphics rather than
getting a dedicated graphics card." And then folks who just want to enjoy media
content playback might go, "Oh, well, if my onboard graphics can handle a couple
consecutive 4K outputs, well, hey, that's great. Then I guess I don't need
a dedicated graphics card for that." But I think what we can all agree on is that
one of the best things about onboard graphics is the fact that they're
tightly integrated with the CPU, which enables lower power to go along with
that high performance and even lower heat output compared to dedicated
discrete components. So, we are on a voyage of discovery where we're going to
be traveling the show floor and the suites to find not necessarily as many
implementations of Intel Iris series graphics as we can, but definitely the
widest variety that we can find. So, there'll be like notebooks and all-in-
ones and even this thing, whatever this is. Stay tuned for that. Okay, I'll tell
you. It's a computer. It fits in my hand and on my head.
Okay, it's not really good for that. Now, this isn't exactly what I had
in mind when I first heard about Crystalwell or as it became Iris Pro
Graphics, but this is the Bricks Pro
from Gigabyte, and they've actually got a full lineup of them, but what I want
to focus on is the Pro. So, there are two different ones right here that are
running a couple of different configurations. This one has an Intel
Core i7 4770R and I want to show you guys for
scale what this thing looks like in my very small hands. It really is a
handheld PC. It's about like two nucks stacked together. We have both HDMI and
mini DisplayPort out. Gigabit LAN, super speed USB 3 on the back and on the
front a Kensington lock and what looks like a pretty beefy copper heat sink
inside. It can accept both an MSA SSD as
well as a 2 and 1/2 in hard drive. But uh what's really impressive about this
is the fact that this is Battlefield 4 and I'd like to take a moment and show
you guys the graphics options that we have running. So we are running Battlefield 4 at 720p, medium details, a
motion blur off, and getting an acceptable gaming
experience on onboard Intel graphics.
That is a first. But the Core i7 model
isn't the only option. So this one right here uses a 467 or rather
4570R. It also has the same expansion and you can see we're running a 4K video
demo over HDMI. Ah yes, thank you.
So, on this one, we've got a 4K demo running on a Seiki TV. And uh I guess
the if the objective is to show that Iris Pro can handle 4K video playback
without any difficulty, then mission accomplished. One thing I wouldn't mind
checking out, and this is something that I didn't necessarily mention we were
going to do, is I would love to see what
our CPU usage looks like while this is
going on. Yes, friends, we are looking at about 29% CPU usage playing back 4K
video on a machine that can literally fit in your pocket if your pockets are
very large. In our quest for Intel Iris powered devices, you might say that the
pickings have become wh I almost dropped it. That would be bad. A little bit
slim. This is the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA.
It is an extremely thin Core i7
irispowered ultrabook that features a
2560 by 1440 display and of course the
graphics horsepower to back it up. Did I mention it has Iris inside? On the back
it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the inside. Somehow inside this tiny
enclosure they've packed USB3 super speed, micro HDMI, more USB3 super
speed, DisplayPort out, an SD card slot, and of course, well, not of
course, this doesn't this can't take this for granted. It's got up to 8 gigs
of memory and up to 512 gigs of RAID
zero SSD storage, making this one thin
LED backlit sexy ultrabook iris powered
device. Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there, guys. I was too busy playing Grid 2 on a
battery powered 21in all-in-one that's
running Intel onboard graphics. We're running at 1080p with medium details.
that actually looks quite excellent. And this is the Sony Viotap 21. Another
unique Iris design that we haven't seen before. It features a Core i7 4558U. So
that is a dual core 4thread Core i7
processor. This particular one has 16 gigs of RAM on it. It's got a 1080p
display. It's got NFC. And this is the real kicker for me. I mentioned it
briefly before, but this thing is battery powered. You can actually run
for a few hours away from wall power should you so desire. And on top of all
that, it's actually quite slim. So, it's got a nice aluminum backing here. It's
got a full 10point multi-touch touchscreen. And then it's got a
gorgeous little aluminum stand that allows you to adjust your angle either
up more vertical like this as would be suitable for more like desktop use or
you know if the kids are playing Angry Birds or whatever else. You can actually
fold it down all the way flat and use it as more of a tabletop style display well
display and full computer. This is the
last stop on the Iris train here at the show. This is the Cyberpower Zeus
Hercules. It features an Intel Core i7 quad core
4750HQ. So that is pretty much okay.
It's like a mobile workstation, right? So you can use the quadcore processor to
do pretty much whatever you want in terms of photo editing or video editing.
You can use the uh the video decode and
video encode features on the GPU. So that is the Iris Pro graphics for those
applications as well. And all of that is within a very very slim form factor.
Now, with that said, why don't we just sort of step
aside from the workstation thing for a minute? Okay. Yeah, it's got a 1080p
display. It looks really great. It's very portable. It's actually reasonably
lightweight when you consider what you can do with it. But let's talk about the gaming capability of Iris Pro graphics.
Uh, yeah, okay, CPUs with Iris Pro do consume a little bit more power, but
remember guys, you don't then need to add a dedicated graphics chip in order
to get acceptable performance. Now, I've got a friend over at Intel who was kind
of telling me, "Okay, yeah, Iris Pro, you're looking at 30 40% better than
Iris, but what does that mean in real life?" What it means in real life is
that they've actually used this very notebook to run professional tournaments
with thousands and thousands of people watching them without anybody ever
actually realizing. So, this is a Starcraft 2 1v1 that they were running
off of a notebook with integrated graphics. So, I hope this whole showcase
where we've got all-in- ones with batteries, we've got gaming notebooks
that don't have dedicated graphics chips, we've got little tiny PCs that
can hook up and play 4K video. I hope
this has given you guys some perspective on the variations that can be achieved.
Variations. Why did I even say that? I was doing really well until like I
completely jumped off the train of how well that video was going. Anyway, I'm
not going to worry too much about it. Maybe I was just like too too dazzled by
all the variety that we just saw. I needed to come up with a new variety of
word to describe it. Anyway guys, that's pretty much it for our Irish showcase
here at CES 2014. Like this video if you liked it. Dislike it if you disliked it.
As always, don't forget to subscribe. And the last thing I'd like to ask you
guys is out of all the different form factors we saw, which one is your
favorite in this video? Just leave a comment under the video and let us know.