Intel Iris Graphics at CES 2014
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,548 words · ~7 min read
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Linus Tech Tips coverage of CES 2014 is brought to you by ncx.com, your source
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for great technology, selection, and service along with Corsair Memory and
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Western Digital. Better onboard graphics is great for lots of things. We can't
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necessarily all agree on what it's better for. I mean, some people might
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go, "Oh, well, I can use uh graphics cores and Open CL to accelerate certain
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content creation workloads that are more optimal on a graphics core than they are
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in a CPU core." gamers might go, "Oh, well, hey, I can I can, you know, play
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games like Dota 2 or League of Legends on my onboard graphics rather than
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getting a dedicated graphics card." And then folks who just want to enjoy media
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content playback might go, "Oh, well, if my onboard graphics can handle a couple
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consecutive 4K outputs, well, hey, that's great. Then I guess I don't need
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a dedicated graphics card for that." But I think what we can all agree on is that
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one of the best things about onboard graphics is the fact that they're
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tightly integrated with the CPU, which enables lower power to go along with
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that high performance and even lower heat output compared to dedicated
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discrete components. So, we are on a voyage of discovery where we're going to
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be traveling the show floor and the suites to find not necessarily as many
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implementations of Intel Iris series graphics as we can, but definitely the
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widest variety that we can find. So, there'll be like notebooks and all-in-
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ones and even this thing, whatever this is. Stay tuned for that. Okay, I'll tell
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you. It's a computer. It fits in my hand and on my head.
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Okay, it's not really good for that. Now, this isn't exactly what I had
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in mind when I first heard about Crystalwell or as it became Iris Pro
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Graphics, but this is the Bricks Pro
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from Gigabyte, and they've actually got a full lineup of them, but what I want
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to focus on is the Pro. So, there are two different ones right here that are
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running a couple of different configurations. This one has an Intel
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Core i7 4770R and I want to show you guys for
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scale what this thing looks like in my very small hands. It really is a
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handheld PC. It's about like two nucks stacked together. We have both HDMI and
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mini DisplayPort out. Gigabit LAN, super speed USB 3 on the back and on the
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front a Kensington lock and what looks like a pretty beefy copper heat sink
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inside. It can accept both an MSA SSD as
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well as a 2 and 1/2 in hard drive. But uh what's really impressive about this
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is the fact that this is Battlefield 4 and I'd like to take a moment and show
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you guys the graphics options that we have running. So we are running Battlefield 4 at 720p, medium details, a
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motion blur off, and getting an acceptable gaming
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experience on onboard Intel graphics.
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That is a first. But the Core i7 model
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isn't the only option. So this one right here uses a 467 or rather
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4570R. It also has the same expansion and you can see we're running a 4K video
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demo over HDMI. Ah yes, thank you.
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So, on this one, we've got a 4K demo running on a Seiki TV. And uh I guess
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the if the objective is to show that Iris Pro can handle 4K video playback
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without any difficulty, then mission accomplished. One thing I wouldn't mind
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checking out, and this is something that I didn't necessarily mention we were
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going to do, is I would love to see what
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our CPU usage looks like while this is
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going on. Yes, friends, we are looking at about 29% CPU usage playing back 4K
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video on a machine that can literally fit in your pocket if your pockets are
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very large. In our quest for Intel Iris powered devices, you might say that the
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pickings have become wh I almost dropped it. That would be bad. A little bit
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slim. This is the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA.
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It is an extremely thin Core i7
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irispowered ultrabook that features a
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2560 by 1440 display and of course the
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graphics horsepower to back it up. Did I mention it has Iris inside? On the back
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it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the inside. Somehow inside this tiny
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enclosure they've packed USB3 super speed, micro HDMI, more USB3 super
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speed, DisplayPort out, an SD card slot, and of course, well, not of
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course, this doesn't this can't take this for granted. It's got up to 8 gigs
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of memory and up to 512 gigs of RAID
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zero SSD storage, making this one thin
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LED backlit sexy ultrabook iris powered
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device. Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there, guys. I was too busy playing Grid 2 on a
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battery powered 21in all-in-one that's
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running Intel onboard graphics. We're running at 1080p with medium details.
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that actually looks quite excellent. And this is the Sony Viotap 21. Another
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unique Iris design that we haven't seen before. It features a Core i7 4558U. So
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that is a dual core 4thread Core i7
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processor. This particular one has 16 gigs of RAM on it. It's got a 1080p
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display. It's got NFC. And this is the real kicker for me. I mentioned it
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briefly before, but this thing is battery powered. You can actually run
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for a few hours away from wall power should you so desire. And on top of all
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that, it's actually quite slim. So, it's got a nice aluminum backing here. It's
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got a full 10point multi-touch touchscreen. And then it's got a
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gorgeous little aluminum stand that allows you to adjust your angle either
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up more vertical like this as would be suitable for more like desktop use or
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you know if the kids are playing Angry Birds or whatever else. You can actually
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fold it down all the way flat and use it as more of a tabletop style display well
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display and full computer. This is the
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last stop on the Iris train here at the show. This is the Cyberpower Zeus
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Hercules. It features an Intel Core i7 quad core
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4750HQ. So that is pretty much okay.
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It's like a mobile workstation, right? So you can use the quadcore processor to
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do pretty much whatever you want in terms of photo editing or video editing.
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You can use the uh the video decode and
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video encode features on the GPU. So that is the Iris Pro graphics for those
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applications as well. And all of that is within a very very slim form factor.
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Now, with that said, why don't we just sort of step
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aside from the workstation thing for a minute? Okay. Yeah, it's got a 1080p
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display. It looks really great. It's very portable. It's actually reasonably
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lightweight when you consider what you can do with it. But let's talk about the gaming capability of Iris Pro graphics.
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Uh, yeah, okay, CPUs with Iris Pro do consume a little bit more power, but
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remember guys, you don't then need to add a dedicated graphics chip in order
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to get acceptable performance. Now, I've got a friend over at Intel who was kind
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of telling me, "Okay, yeah, Iris Pro, you're looking at 30 40% better than
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Iris, but what does that mean in real life?" What it means in real life is
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that they've actually used this very notebook to run professional tournaments
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with thousands and thousands of people watching them without anybody ever
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actually realizing. So, this is a Starcraft 2 1v1 that they were running
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off of a notebook with integrated graphics. So, I hope this whole showcase
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where we've got all-in- ones with batteries, we've got gaming notebooks
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that don't have dedicated graphics chips, we've got little tiny PCs that
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can hook up and play 4K video. I hope
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this has given you guys some perspective on the variations that can be achieved.
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Variations. Why did I even say that? I was doing really well until like I
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completely jumped off the train of how well that video was going. Anyway, I'm
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not going to worry too much about it. Maybe I was just like too too dazzled by
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all the variety that we just saw. I needed to come up with a new variety of
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word to describe it. Anyway guys, that's pretty much it for our Irish showcase
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here at CES 2014. Like this video if you liked it. Dislike it if you disliked it.
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As always, don't forget to subscribe. And the last thing I'd like to ask you
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guys is out of all the different form factors we saw, which one is your
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favorite in this video? Just leave a comment under the video and let us know.