Intel HD Graphics is a series of Intel integrated graphics processors built into computer processors.

History

Previous to HD Graphics, Intel integrated graphics were built into the motherboard's northbridge

Northbridge (computing)

The northbridge has historically been one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Increasingly these functions have migrated to the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion...

. This included Intel Extreme Graphics and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator. As part of the Platform Controller Hub

Platform Controller Hub

The Platform Controller Hub is a family of Intel microchips. I/O Functions have been reassigned between the PCH, a new central hub, and the CPU. Some northbridge functions, the memory controller and PCI-e lanes, were integrated into the CPU while the PCH took over the remaining functions in...

 (PCH) design, the northbridge was eliminated, and graphics processing was moved to the central processing unit

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 (CPU).

In January, 2010, the Clarkdale

Clarkdale (microprocessor)

Clarkdale is the code name for an Intel processor, initially sold as desktop Intel Core i5 and Core i3 and Pentium. It is closely related to themobile Arrandale processor; both use dual-core dies based on the 32 nm...

 and Arrandale

Arrandale (microprocessor)

Arrandale is the code name for a mobile Intel processor, sold as mobile Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 as well as Celeron and Pentium. It is closely related to the desktop Clarkdale processor; both use dual-core dies based on the 32 nm Westmere shrink of the Nehalem microarchitecture and have integrated...

 processors were released with HD Graphics, and branded as Celeron

Celeron

Celeron is a brand name given by Intel Corp. to a number of different x86 computer microprocessor models targeted at budget personal computers....

, Pentium

Pentium

The original Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture, deemed P5, was Intel's fifth-generation and first superscalar x86 microarchitecture. As a direct extension of the 80486 architecture, it included dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus,...

, or Core

Intel Core

Yonah was the code name for Intel's first generation of 65 nm process mobile microprocessors, based on the Banias/Dothan-core Pentium M microarchitecture. SIMD performance has been improved through the addition of SSE3 instructions and improvements to SSE and SSE2 implementations, while integer...

. The following year the "second generation" was released as Sandy Bridge

Sandy Bridge

Sandy Bridge is the codename for a microarchitecture developed by Intel beginning in 2005 for central processing units in computers to replace the Nehalem microarchitecture...

.

Specifications

Graphics	Market	CPU	Code name	Device ID	Core clock Clock rate The clock rate typically refers to the frequency that a CPU is running at.For example, a crystal oscillator frequency reference typically is synonymous with a fixed sinusoidal waveform, a clock rate is that frequency reference translated by electronic circuitry into a corresponding square wave...  (MHz Hertz The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications.... )	Execution units	Shader model	Fillrate Fillrate The term fillrate usually refers to the number of pixels a video card can render and write to video memory in a second. In this case, fillrates are given in megapixels per second or in gigapixels per second , and they are obtained by multiplying the number of raster operations by the clock...  (GP/s)	API Application programming interface An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...  support			Memory bandwidth Memory bandwidth Memory bandwidth is the rate at which data can be read from or stored into a semiconductor memory by a processor. Memory bandwidth is usually expressed in units of bytes/second, though this can vary for systems with natural data sizes that are not a multiple of the commonly used 8-bit bytes.Memory...  (GB/s)	DVMT (MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... )	Hardware acceleration
									DirectX DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...	OpenGL OpenGL OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...	OpenCL OpenCL OpenCL is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language for writing kernels , plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms...			CVT HD Intel Clear Video Intel Clear Video is a hardware feature designed to offload video decoding processes and video post-processing from a computer's CPU hardware to Intel's GMA integrated graphics processors.- External links :* *...	QSV Intel Quick Sync Video Intel Quick Sync Video is Intel's hardware video encoding and decoding technology, which is integrated into some Intel CPUs. The name "Quick Sync" refers to the use case of quickly transcoding a video from, for example, a DVD or Blu-ray Disk to a format appropriate to, for example, a smartphone...
HD Graphics	Desktop	Pentium G69x0	Clarkdale Clarkdale (microprocessor) Clarkdale is the code name for an Intel processor, initially sold as desktop Intel Core i5 and Core i3 and Pentium. It is closely related to themobile Arrandale processor; both use dual-core dies based on the 32 nm...	0042	533	12	4.0	6.396	10.0	2.1	No	17	1720	No	No
		Core i3-5x0 Core i5-6x0 Core i5-655K			733			8.796				21.3		Yes
		Core i5-661			900			10.8
	Mobile	Celeron U3xxx Pentium U5xxx	Arrandale	0046	166–500			1.992-6				12.8		?
		Core i3-330UM Core i5-520UM Core i7-620UE Core i7-6x0UM												Yes
		Core i7-620LE Core i7-6x0LM			266–566			3.192-6.792				17.1
		Celeron P4xxx Pentium P6xxx			500–667			6-8.004						?
		Core i3-3x0M												Yes
		Core i5-430M Core i5-520E Core i5-5x0M Core i7-610E Core i7-620M			500–766			6-9.192
HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)	Desktop	Celeron G5x0 Celeron G530T Pentium G6xx Pentium G6x0T Pentium G8x0	Sandy Bridge Sandy Bridge (microarchitecture) Sandy Bridge is the codename for a microarchitecture developed by Intel beginning in 2005 for central processing units in computers to replace the Nehalem microarchitecture...	0102 0106 0112 0116 0122 0126 010A	650–1100	6	4.1	3.9-6.6	10.1	3.1	No	21.3	1720	No	No
	Mobile	Celeron B710 Celeron B8x0 Pentium B9x0			350–1100			2.1-6.6
HD Graphics 2000	Desktop	Core i3-2102 Core i3-21x0 Core i3-21x0T Core i5-2x00 Core i5-2x00S Core i5-25x0T Core i7-2600 Core i7-2600S			650–1250			3.9-7.5						Yes	Yes
	Server	Xeon E3-1260L
HD Graphics 3000	Desktop	Core i3-21x5 Core i5-2405S Core i5-2500K Core i7-2x00K			850–1350	12		10.2-16.2
	Mobile	Core i3-2330E Core i3-23xxM Core i5-2510E Core i5-24xxM Core i5-25xxM Core i7-26xxM Core i7-2710QE Core i7-27x0QM Core i7-29x0XM			350–1300			4.2-15.6
HD Graphics P3000	Server	Xeon E3-12x5			850-1350			10.2-16.2
?	?	?	Ivy Bridge	0080	?	16	5.0		11	3.1	1.1	?	?
?	?	?	Haswell	?	?	?	5.0		11.1	3.2	1.1	?	?

Note: The raw performance of integrated GPU, in single-precision FLOPS

FLOPS

In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...

, can be calculated as follows: EU * 4 [dual-issue x 2 SP] * 2 [multiply + accumulate] * clock speed. For example, the HD Graphics 3000 is rated at 125 GFLOPS, which is consistent with the formula (12 * 4 * 2 * 1,300 MHz).