Intel Beefs Up 11th-Gen Laptop CPUs With Better Graphics

Intel revealed new additions to its 11th-gen mobile processor lineup as part of this year’s virtual Computex show. The processors are based on Intel’s Evo platform and feature integrated Iris Xe graphics and WiFi 6. The company also announced a 5G modem for connectivity on future Windows machines.

The new Core i7-1195G7 and Core i5-1155G7 chips are part of the Intel U-series family of processors and boast speeds of up to 5GHz. Intel claims the processors offer up to 25% better application performance than the competition. Specifically, Intel is competing with AMD’s Ryzen processors, which have recently become more prevalent in Windows machines. Intel is also touting the ability for laptop makers to optimize its new processors to deliver “up to 8x faster transcoding and up to double the video editing speed.” Here are the details:

• Core i7-1195G7: 4-core/8-thread, base clock 2.9GHz (max turbo boost 5.0GHz on 1-2 cores, 4.6GHz on all cores), support for up to DDR4 3200Hz memory
• Core i5-1155G7: 4-core/8-thread, base clock 2.5GHz (max turbo boost 4.5GHz on 1-2 cores, 4.3GHz on all cores), support for up to DDR4 3200Hz memory

The new Core i5 and i7 processors include compatibility for Wi-Fi 6/6E connections, so you can finally put that new mesh router to use. They come paired with Intel’s Iris Xe graphics chip, capable of enabling casual PC gamers to play their way through some of the best the back catalog has to offer. The Iris Xe is essentially a laptop GPU built for the current generation of processors. We previewed an 11th-gen CPU with integrated graphics, and the Iris Xe managed impressive frame rates over the previous lineup of integrated graphics, showing an ability to run some of the latest games at low resolutions.

But crucially the Xe integrated GPU’s performance is also a huge jump over Intel’s current UHD Graphics 630, which averages 17 fps, and still a major jump over Intel’s Core i7-1065G7 Iris Plus Graphics 25 W variant, which averages 33 fps. The Xe’s not 1080p at 60 fps, but getting the same framerate at a higher resolution than the previous-gen Iris graphics is impressive. This is an integrated GPU! It’s not something you’re going to be expected to pay a premium for like the discrete Nvidia graphics in gaming laptops. This is the kind of chip you’re going to find in your typical $1,000 Dell or HP laptop and it makes gaming, albeit at lower visual quality, an actual possibility.

Intel said that more than 60 devices based on the new Intel Core i5 and i7 are expected to be available by the holiday season. This includes machines from manufacturers like Acer, ASUS, Lenovo, and MSI, with the first new batch on sale as soon as this summer.

Intel’s other major announcement is a 5G modem for laptops, the Intel 5G Solution 5000. The modem already has worldwide 5G carrier certification, helped in part through a collaboration between Intel and China Mobile, MediaTek, DoCoMo, and HP. The company said to expect over 30 machines by 2022 to ship with the 5G modem inside, and that Acer, ASUS, and HP will be among the first manufacturers to offer it in their laptops.

With 5G’s promises of wireless speeds akin to what you’d get in a wired environment, it’ll be interesting to see if an integrated modem becomes a selling point for laptops as the specification becomes more available. Imagine a lineup of flagship laptops capable of quickly rendering and uploading high-resolution video while you’re on the go—sounds like it’s just around the corner.