Skylake’s New Graphics Core Names Make More Sense

We finally see Intel getting it right and structuring their naming convention and numbers to actually make sense when it comes to Intel Graphics in its latest Intel Skylake chips. A recent driver leak revealed what the company has planned and how you should choose Intel’s graphics.

Before we get into that, lets see where Intel went into the wrong direction. 2010’s Westmere chips saw the first entry-level HD Graphics, followed by Sandy Bridge’s HD 2000/3000. So far, the numbering system clearly displayed their performance through the latter numbering system.

Intel’s HD Graphics took a turn in 2012 with the Ivy Bridge and HD 2500/4000. From here, Haswell and Broadwell HD Graphics’ numbering system went as a ‘messy’ waterfall, having higher HD Graphics number models with a mixture of frequencies and execution units, sometimes even lower than HD Graphics with a lower numbering system. It was hard distinguishing which is which and what is better that the other without a deep search of the CPU and the graphics it boasted.

Luckily, the leaked Skylake drivers give us some hope and show that Intel is finally tidying its graphics naming conventions, having the company reducing it to a letter followed by three digits as show in the pic below.

According to a blog post from MyDrivers, the HD Graphics will remain the base graphics models, which can be found on the Celeron and Pentium CPUs. The HD 510/515/520/530/535/540 will represent the common multimedia-oriented graphical solutions found on the Core iX models. They will come with various frequencies, so be sure to check the CPU out before you buy it.

The Iris 550 is said to be the higher-level solution found in high-end smartphones, while the Iris Pro 570/580 are found in the top-of-the-line K Desktop models and smartphone models. They are rumoured to boast an embedded catch of 64 MB or 128 MB, depending on the CPU model. Finally, we have the HD P530 and Iris Pro P580, which can be found on the Xeon E3 product line and corresponding desktop version.