As part of their regular improvements to drivers, Intel has released a new HD Graphics driver that applies to all Ivy Bridge and Haswell Ultrabooks. The new driver fixes a number of bugs and enhances game and program compatibility.
We saw the ASUS Infinity launch, behind perspex, at Computex. It appeared last week at IFA but it wasn’t until today that I got some hands-on time with it. It’s a beautiful design, light and has the unique feature of an Intel Iris HD 5100 GPU.
Ultrabooks. Copies of the MacBook Air. Expensive laptops. Bringing nothing new to the table. I’ve read it all and discussed it all but knew from day 1 that there would be something special coming. Having followed Atom from day 1 to the point where Moorestown finally got the architecture right I knew what Intel could achieve. Haswell was built with the next generation laptop in mind. It’s HDR-Computing with Connected Standby, some of the best integrated graphics on the market, video engines that can process end-to-end 4K and TDP’s that will allow manufacturers to design PCs you never thought were possible. With Haswell, Ultrabooks get meaning.
Intel Iris and Intel Iris Pro have just been announced as the new brands for the top two tiers of Intel’s 4th-gen Core processor (Haswell) graphics. Iris will appear in Ultrabooks but, surprisingly, only on a 28W TDP processor. It indicates that there are some higher-level processing options coming to Ultrabooks. Other 4th-gen Core processors for Ultrabooks get HD 5000 graphics.
