AMD Radeon R5 (Bristol Ridge) vs Intel UHD Graphics 615

AMD Radeon R5 (Bristol Ridge)

The AMD Radeon R5 (Bristol Ridge) is an integrated graphics card for a number of mid-range mobile Bristol-Ridge-based APUs, such as those from the A10 series. It features 384 shader cores clocked at 720 MHz (15 Watt APUs) or 800 MHz (35 Watt APUs). Depending on the configurable TDP (set per laptop model) and the used main memory, the performance can also differ.

Architecture and Features

The Radeon R5 utilizes the third generation GCN architecture (sometimes referred to as GCN 1.2) similar to the desktop Tonga chip. As a result, it supports DirectX 12 (FL 12_0) with advanced color compression that leads to a 5-7% improvement in games. Furthermore, its shaders can be used with Mantle, OpenGL and OpenCL. HSA 1.0 is supported for running code on both CPU and GPU cores simultaneously. The improved video decoder UVD 6 (Unified Video Decoder) is now able to decode HVEC / H.265 up to 4K in hardware. Furthermore, the VCE (Video Codec Engine) has been improved for faster transcoding of H.264. More information on architecture and features of the Bristol Ridge architecture can be found in our launch article.

Performance

Gaming performance of the integrated R5 GPU depends on the configured TDP, model and main memory of the system. A typical ULV version with a TDP of 15 Watt paired with fast dual channel main memory is nearly on a level with the dedicated GeForce 920M or Radeon R7 M260 (see gaming benchmarks below). Therefore, demanding games of 2015 and 2016 may only run in the lowest detail settings fluently (and some not at all).

Power Consumption

Depending on the configured TDP, the still in 28 nm produced chip may be used in thin-and-light (12 - 20 Watt range) to standard-sized laptops (35 Watt TDP).

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.