Gaming on Skylake Integrated Graphics

Integrated GPUs have never been much of an option for serious gamers. Since you weren’t spending anything at all on a dedicated GPU, baseline graphics performance was to be expected. By the time of the Intel® HD 4000, we’d gotten to the point where seventh-gen titles, particularly older ones like Fallout 3, were more or less playable, though the experience was still inferior to what you’d get on the PS3 or the Xbox 360. But hold on a minute. Per Steam, the most popular graphics adapter is not the GTX 970 or R9 290, or even “sweetspot” models like the GTX 760. The Intel® HD 4000 is one of the more popular graphics adapter in use by gamers.

While the eighth-gen consoles aren’t much against a high-end PC, both the PS4 and Xbox One offer several times the GPU performance of their predecessors. This puts Intel in an interesting position—in the HD 4000, their integrated solution offered performance that just about touched the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Last year’s Iris and Iris Pro integrated GPUs blew the lid right off that plan: With its dedicated high-speed ESRAM, Iris Pro delivered performance on par with entry level desktop cards like the GTX 650 and the HD 7770. Unfortunately the Broadwell architecture that Iris debuted on didn’t remain upmarket for long. However, with the new Skylake parts out now, including the Intel® Core™ i7-6700K, they are continuing their push for a playable baseline experience in the eighth gen. The new HD Graphics 530 and 520 integrated GPUs ought to do the trick. With Skylake processors rolling out in a big way, let’s have a look at the kind of games you can expect to run on “just” Intel HD Graphics.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Developed as a cross-gen title, Metal Gear Solid V leverages the incredibly scalable Fox Engine to deliver great graphics, while working on a wide range of platforms. As can be seen from our benchmarks here, it doesn’t take a great deal of power to run MGS V, even maxed out and at 1080p. Realistically, on new Intel HD GPUs, we’re looking at a locked 30 FPS and mostly medium settings, at 720p or 900p. That might not seem like much, but bear in mind that the last-gen consoles run the game at pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel settings, at sub-HD.

Mad Max: While Mad Max, the game is certainly not very fun, it runs incredibly well on just about anything. On the Intel HD GT520, realistically, we’re looking at a 720p/30 experience mostly maxed out, or 900p or 1080p/30 depending on how many settings you’re willing to drop. That is pretty impressive, considering that Mad Max is an eighth-gen exclusive.

Grand Theft Auto V: In addition to being perhaps one of the finest testaments to videogames as a genre of media, GTA V is among the most polished PC ports we’ve seen in a while. Clearly, Rockstar wasn’t sitting idle during the two year-long gap between the initial console release and the launch of the PC version. While the higher settings, particularly the advanced options and grass detail, will be out of reach for the HD Graphics GT 530, a combination of medium and high settings should run just fine at 720p and 900p.

Alien: Isolation: Hey look, something from the Alien franchise that’s not a movie and also doesn’t suck! Against all odds, judging from appalling pedigree, Creative Assembly’s latest addition to the franchise is actually a great survival-horror game in its own right, with a healthy dose of retro-futurism on top. With the close confines Sevastopol Station keeping the action focused on smaller areas, Alien: Isolation manages to look and run well. At 720p, expect a mostly maxed-out experience while sticking to a consistent 30 FPS update.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: I’m not much of an advocate for CoD, or its particular brand of in-your-face histrionics, but then again, I’m the kind of person who watched Australian arthouse films so my opinion may be a little biased here. Nevertheless, Advanced Warfare runs excellently on a variety of platforms, so long as you stay far away from the Supersampling setting. No really, stay far, far away from it. 16X supersampling can bring a Titan X to its knees, so who’re you trying to kid here? That apart, the Intel HD GT 530 should handle Advanced Warfare just fine. While a locked 60 might be pushing it a little, the HD GT 530 should run the game at a perfectly playable framerate.

We’re excited about the Sixth-gen Skylake processors from Intel and their beefy GPUs. What do you think about Skylake? Let us know in the comments below.