AMD Radeon 630 vs Intel UHD Graphics 617 vs AMD Radeon 610

AMD Radeon 630

The Radeon 630 is a dedicated entry-level graphics card for laptops that was released in 2019. AMD reveals that the chip features eight compute units based on the GCN architecture and 4 GB GDDR5 64-bit graphics memory. The chip is most likely based on the Polaris architecture and therefore a rebrand of the old Radeon RX 540 / RX 540X.

The gaming performance is positioned in the entry level and therefore only a few modern games are playable fluently. See our RX 540 page for game benchmarks.

Intel UHD Graphics 617

The Intel UHD Graphics 617 (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 1050 MHz (depending on the CPU model). Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the UHD 617 has to access the main memory (2x 64bit DDR3L/LPDDR3). Compared to the old HD Graphics 615 in Kaby-Lake-Y CPUs, the UHD 617 is the same GPU with slightly different clock speeds (depending on the model) and slight power/performance improvements due to the improved 14nm++ process. Compared to the similar UHD Graphics 615 in other Amber Lake models, the 617 looks to be higher clocked (+50 MHz) and has more headroom due to the higher TDP of 7 versus 5 Watt.

Performance

The 3D performance of the UHD 617 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 617 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 / 617 now supports H.265/HEVC Main10 profile in hardware with 10 bit colors. Furthermore, Googles VP9 codec can also be hardware decoded. The UHD 617 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 617 can be found in Y processors with 7 W TDP  and is therefore suited for very thin, mostly passively cooled subnotebooks like the MacBook Air 2018.

AMD Radeon 610

The Radeon 610 is a dedicated entry-level graphics card for laptops that was released in 2019. It is the slowest dedicated graphics card from AMD in 2019 and a rename of the old Radeon 520. Therefore, it is not based on the newer Polaris or even Navi architecture, but should use the old Sun chip from 2014 (Radeon R5 M230 e.g.).

The performance should be similar to the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 and therefore, the gaming performance is only suited for very low demanding games. Look at our benchmarks of the similar Radeon 520 for reference.