Generation to generation, Intel graphics are getting better and you can even use Intel notebooks to play some casual games. Naturally having a discrete GPU will always be a faster choice, but notebooks with discrete GPUs are usually more expensive and by default they want more power, especially in gaming mode.

Intel’s surprise for 2013 is a next generation Haswell that can support DirectX 11.1 specification. Microsoft has announced that the 11.1 feature set includes shader tracing and compiler enhancements, Direct3D device sharing, check support of new Direct3D 11.1 features and formats, larger constant buffers than a shader can access, use logical operations in a render target, process video resources with shaders, extended support for shared Texture2D resources and other goodies. You can check out the full feature set here.

The list is long and Intel is committed to support all the new features with the next generation 2013 notebook and desktop parts and Haswell based platforms. In addition, Intel plans to support OpenGL 3.2 as well as OpenCL 1.2. we have already mentioned the support for three independent display support with resolution up to 38x2160, popularly known as 4K resolution. It also supports Display port 1.2 as well as HDMI 1.4 for 2D and 3D display support.