Intel UHD Graphics 615 vs AMD Radeon HD 8280

Intel UHD Graphics 615

The Intel UHD Graphics 615 (GT2) is a low-end integrated graphics unit, which can be found in the Y-series of the Amber-Lake generation. This "GT2" version offers 24 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at up to 1000 MHz (depending on the CPU model). Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the UHD 615 has to access the main memory (2x 64bit DDR3L/LPDDR3). Compared to the old HD Graphics 615 in Kaby-Lake-Y CPUs, the UHD 615 is the same GPU with slightly different clock speeds (depending on the model) and slight power/performance improvements due to the improved 14nm++ process .

Performance

The 3D performance of the UHD 615 depends on the CPU model and the cooling / TDP-setting of the laptop. Furthermore, the used main memory (single channel, DDR3(L), amount) is influencing performance. On average the UHD graphics 615 should be very similar to the Kaby-Lake HD Graphics 615 due to the same architecture and similar speeds. That means that only low demanding games like Farming Simulator 17 or Rocket League are playable in lowest detail settings.

Features

The revised video engine in the HD 615 and UHD 615 now supports H.265/HEVC Main10 profile in hardware with 10 bit colors. Furthermore, Googles VP9 codec can also be hardware decoded. The UHD 615 should support HDCP 2.2 and therefore Netflix 4K. HDMI 2.0 however is still only supported with an external converter chip (LSPCon).

Power Consumption

The UHD Graphics 615 can be found in Y processors with 5 W TDP (can be manipulated by the laptop manufacturers, and up 0,5 Watt from the previous generation) and is therefore suited for very thin, mostly passively cooled 2-in-1 notebooks and tablets.

AMD Radeon HD 8280

The AMD Radeon HD 8280 is an integrated DirectX 11.1 graphics card typically paired with AMD Kabini-class APUs (for example, E2-3000). It offers 128 shader cores and two Compute Units based on the GCN architecture and is clocked at 450 MHz with no support for Turbo. The graphics card does not have dedicated VRAM and will access the main memory of the system (up to single-channel DDR3L-1600).

The HD 8280 integrates both UVD 4.2 and VCE 2.0 video encoders. It supports up to two external monitors via VGA, DVI, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2.

Depending on the benchmark, the performance of the Radeon HD 8280 is slightly below the Intel HD Graphics (Haswell). This is on par with a dedicated Radeon HD 7370M, but is still too slow for most demanding games as of 2013. However, some older and less demanding games should run fluently if the performance of the CPU is sufficient.