Is my Intel graphics driver up to date?

During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

On 6/03/2017 11:32 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:
... 530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.
... version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.
Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

If you don't have need to use the latest and greatest, don't be bothered
by the version numbers.

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On 6/03/2017 11:32 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

BTW, don't be obsessive.

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

How many sources are there for drivers ?

1) Windows Update (if hardware updates are turned on).
2) Dell, if machine is a Dell, and perhaps the Dell has
its own update checker.
3) Intel - downloadcenter.intel.com . ("Intel HD Graphics 530")
They may have an updater available on there , but it could
well be more trouble than it is worth. Just manually search
using the hardware name instead.

Ultimately, all the drivers come from Intel, for
their specific GPU designs.

As for the numbering schemes, manufacturers have "streams"
of drivers. They can number the drivers differently for
"OEM" versus "Retail" for example. It's not often that
a hardware manufacturer will describe the numbering scheme,
so you kinda have to guess at the significance of
each numeric field.

Intel plays a further game with its RST or RAID drivers,
with "artificial restrictions" on feature set for desktop
versus workstation or server "chipset SKU". You may read
in a thread, about a particular driver, only to discover
your chipset is the "wrong SKU family to have fun". And
so on. That's Intel for you. "Caution - Marketing weasels at work"

Paul

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

OK, you can get that one from Windows Update. So maybe
your driver setting is blocking that right now. You can
download this and install manually if you want. No problem.
With the .msu file, just double-click.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft....=21.20.16.4590

Intel Corporation - Display - 1/18/2017 12:00:00 AM - 21.20.16.4590
Windows 10 and later drivers
159.9MB

HTH,
Paul

Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

OK, you can get that one from Windows Update. So maybe
your driver setting is blocking that right now. You can
download this and install manually if you want. No problem.
With the .msu file, just double-click.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft....=21.20.16.4590

Intel Corporation - Display - 1/18/2017 12:00:00 AM - 21.20.16.4590
Windows 10 and later drivers
159.9MB

HTH,
Paul

Thanks Paul. I was just coming back to add the following:


So meanwhile I used the Intel Graphics Update Utility which I found here
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...rt/detect.html

That indicated there *were* two more recent versions:

I installed the latest, shown in that utility as '15.45.14.4590' In
Device Manager it's '21.20.16.4590', dated 18th January 2017. Which
matches my friend's.

Slightly puzzled about '16' v '14'?

And still unsure why Win 10 said my driver was up to date when in fact
it was two versions old?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:
Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK
OK, you can get that one from Windows Update. So maybe
your driver setting is blocking that right now. You can
download this and install manually if you want. No problem.
With the .msu file, just double-click.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft....=21.20.16.4590

Intel Corporation - Display - 1/18/2017 12:00:00 AM - 21.20.16.4590
Windows 10 and later drivers
159.9MB

HTH,
Paul

Thanks Paul. I was just coming back to add the following:


So meanwhile I used the Intel Graphics Update Utility which I found here
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...rt/detect.html

That indicated there *were* two more recent versions:

I installed the latest, shown in that utility as '15.45.14.4590' In
Device Manager it's '21.20.16.4590', dated 18th January 2017. Which
matches my friend's.

Slightly puzzled about '16' v '14'?

And still unsure why Win 10 said my driver was up to date when in fact
it was two versions old?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

The further away you get from Intel, the longer the test interval.
The Microsoft version should be behind a version or two, as
proof it was being "tested" (or something).

As for the numbering... the image is missing, of their "example".

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...000005654.html

I used archive.org to identify where I could find their example image.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/sup...img/schema.jpg

21.20.16.4590

OS DX ?? Build

The first two fields, no longer align with the content of the first link.

The "16" might be the year of publication. But who knows.
Intel doesn't want to actually identify that one.

And the last one is a build number.

Numerical roulette.

Paul

Paul wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:
Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK
OK, you can get that one from Windows Update. So maybe
your driver setting is blocking that right now. You can
download this and install manually if you want. No problem.
With the .msu file, just double-click.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft....=21.20.16.4590

Intel Corporation - Display - 1/18/2017 12:00:00 AM - 21.20.16.4590
Windows 10 and later drivers
159.9MB

HTH,
Paul

Thanks Paul. I was just coming back to add the following:


So meanwhile I used the Intel Graphics Update Utility which I found here
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...rt/detect.html

That indicated there *were* two more recent versions:

I installed the latest, shown in that utility as '15.45.14.4590' In
Device Manager it's '21.20.16.4590', dated 18th January 2017. Which
matches my friend's.

Slightly puzzled about '16' v '14'?

And still unsure why Win 10 said my driver was up to date when in fact
it was two versions old?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

The further away you get from Intel, the longer the test interval.
The Microsoft version should be behind a version or two, as
proof it was being "tested" (or something).

As for the numbering... the image is missing, of their "example".

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...000005654.html

I used archive.org to identify where I could find their example image.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/sup...img/schema.jpg

21.20.16.4590

OS DX ?? Build

The first two fields, no longer align with the content of the first link.

The "16" might be the year of publication. But who knows.
Intel doesn't want to actually identify that one.

And the last one is a build number.

Numerical roulette.

Paul

Many thanks Paul.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-03-06 10:32, Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Unless you have problems, leave well enough alone.


I'd have thought my opening sentence sort of implied that I WAS pursuing
a problem?

"During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance..."

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:

During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

While you two have different Intel processors (i5 for friend, i7 for
you), both have Intel HD Graphics 530. It's likely that you don't just
get a video driver but instead a chipset driver package that bundles in
the video driver. You see the version assigned to the entire chipset
driver package, not the versions of everything bundled within that
package. Also, you never identified which chipset you and your friend
have (B150, B250, H110, H170, H270, Q170, Q270, Z170, Z270) nor which
mobo you and your friend have (brand and model) which can differ in
ancilliary logic to the chipset.

You could go the mobo maker's web site and check what is latest for what
the brand and model of mobo that you have.

Is something "broke" that you think a new version of the video driver
will fix? New code = new bugs + changed behavior. Newer doesn't mean
better, just different.

Example: I had to revert to an old driver for my AMD video card
because the latest version removed access to a quick and easy way to
reset the colors (back to those configured by the driver). When a
video game crashed, and because it had different gamma and other video
settings, that's what I got stuck with until I went into the config
software and reset colors. The new driver doesn't have that option.
Went back to the prior version.

Example: I updated to the latest video version but a video game had
artifacts (pixelation, hesitation, odd texturing). Not only was the
newest video version not good for that game, several of the new
versions weren't good. I had to keep walking back through video
drivers until I found the latest one that still worked well with the
old video game. (This was back in Windows 7, not Windows 10.)
Because newer video drivers add support for newer games usually means
they dumped or altered code for compatibility fixes for old games
(which were new back then and had video driver fixes for those).

Very rarely does a new video version significantly increase performance
(by what measure you haven't identified) but rather addresses bugs,
add/delete or modify features, or add compatibility with new games
(often at the expense of old games). Sometimes the only change is in
the ancilliary software (what you use to configure the video settings -
which was my case in my above first example).

I went to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and entered "HD 530" (the
integrated video controller in your i7-6700). That took me to:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/pro...D-Graphics-530

Notice that the version of the video driver does match on the package
driver version (and which the OEM vendor might've adapted); however,
noticed the datestamps (very recent). So I simply picked the latest
version listed there. Clicked on it and you can see the What's New
section in the description. All that says is some vague mention of game
optimization. Yeah, like I said, often driver updates are to add
compability with new games (at the expense of old games). There is link
to a release history document that you can read. I went back a version
and there was a significant change: support for Vulkan; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API). That doesn't mean that the
video card or that driver afforded any great or even significant
performance boost, only that it added support for the Vulkan API that
some games want to use.

Wolf K wrote:


AIUI, a hardware driver converts the data passed to it by the software
into whatever format that hardware uses, and passes it to the hardware.

On a SATA disk driver, maybe.

You're forgetting what a graphics driver is capable of.

Let's take the venerable FX5200 as an example.

NVidia claims it is "almost" DX9c hardware compatible.

However, it is missing two commands. If a DirectX game
issues those commands, what happens ?

Software emulation. You can "do something" to fill a
hole in the command set. A benchmark of those two
commands, would detect poor acceleration, and then you'd
know what the missing commands were.

Now, imagine your driver is half-finished. You could,
say, have the entire suite already implemented as
a software emulation. Then, issue driver updates, as
you add actual hardware support to the driver. This would
modify the benchmarks run against the hardware, as
time passes and the video driver version changes.

Of particular note, is the crappy OpenGL performance in a
lot of cases. "Certified" drivers can exist for hardware,
that remove bottlenecks that exist on purpose. There is
probably a lot of room for OpenGL to improve, and that's
part of a (crappy) marketing story. For example, a FireGL
card might be able to display 100K OpenGL objects in
real time, while the desktop video card version of the
same chip, with the crappy desktop driver, only supports
50 objects. This is the "hobbling" of hardware, on purpose.

In a version of DirectX which supports the direct feeding
of display lists to the GPU, there might not be as much
need for the driver to get in the way. (That option might
only be exercised by 3D games.) But the driver is there
to fill in the gaps, and give the appearance
of a complete API, standardized to some level.

On Linux, MESA-3D takes the place of hardware acceleration.
If you use just a VESA (unaccelerated) driver, MESA-3D
rides on top and makes sure 3D applications at least run.
But, they will not run "screaming fast". The ATI or NVidia
driver (with binary blob), would run the hardware at full
speed.

So the driver in fact, can be "quite busy doing stuff" :-)
If it's hiding something, and is ashamed to come out
into the light...

Paul

VanguardLH wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:

During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

While you two have different Intel processors (i5 for friend, i7 for
you), both have Intel HD Graphics 530. It's likely that you don't just
get a video driver but instead a chipset driver package that bundles in
the video driver. You see the version assigned to the entire chipset
driver package, not the versions of everything bundled within that
package. Also, you never identified which chipset you and your friend
have (B150, B250, H110, H170, H270, Q170, Q270, Z170, Z270) nor which
mobo you and your friend have (brand and model) which can differ in
ancilliary logic to the chipset.

You could go the mobo maker's web site and check what is latest for what
the brand and model of mobo that you have.

Is something "broke" that you think a new version of the video driver
will fix?

Yes, although past tense applies now. The updated driver has
unfortunately *not fixed it. For me or another friend on the same forum
with an almost identical PC as mine and the same video problem. (With
the way our NLE, Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium, handles the HDR effect,
if you're curious.) Even though the i5 user does not have the problem.
So we're still looking, although I'd have thought the chipset driver low
on the list of possible causes?

New code = new bugs + changed behavior. Newer doesn't mean
better, just different.

Example: I had to revert to an old driver for my AMD video card
because the latest version removed access to a quick and easy way to
reset the colors (back to those configured by the driver). When a
video game crashed, and because it had different gamma and other video
settings, that's what I got stuck with until I went into the config
software and reset colors. The new driver doesn't have that option.
Went back to the prior version.

Example: I updated to the latest video version but a video game had
artifacts (pixelation, hesitation, odd texturing). Not only was the
newest video version not good for that game, several of the new
versions weren't good. I had to keep walking back through video
drivers until I found the latest one that still worked well with the
old video game. (This was back in Windows 7, not Windows 10.)
Because newer video drivers add support for newer games usually means
they dumped or altered code for compatibility fixes for old games
(which were new back then and had video driver fixes for those).

Very rarely does a new video version significantly increase performance
(by what measure you haven't identified) but rather addresses bugs,
add/delete or modify features, or add compatibility with new games
(often at the expense of old games). Sometimes the only change is in
the ancilliary software (what you use to configure the video settings -
which was my case in my above first example).

I went to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and entered "HD 530" (the
integrated video controller in your i7-6700). That took me to:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/pro...D-Graphics-530

Notice that the version of the video driver does match on the package
driver version (and which the OEM vendor might've adapted); however,
noticed the datestamps (very recent). So I simply picked the latest
version listed there. Clicked on it and you can see the What's New
section in the description. All that says is some vague mention of game
optimization. Yeah, like I said, often driver updates are to add
compability with new games (at the expense of old games). There is link
to a release history document that you can read. I went back a version
and there was a significant change: support for Vulkan; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API). That doesn't mean that the
video card or that driver afforded any great or even significant
performance boost, only that it added support for the Vulkan API that
some games want to use.

Did you read my post yesterday reporting that I had installed the latest
driver?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-03-06 15:24, Terry Pinnell wrote:
Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-03-06 10:32, Terry Pinnell wrote:
During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance a puzzle has
arisen. A friend has a brand new i5-6600K, Win 10, with Intel's own HD
530 Graphics, at driver version 21.20.16.4590.

My i7-6700K, Win 10 (bought April 2016), also with 530 graphics, has
version 20.19.15.4474 dated June 2016.

Using 'Update Drivers' from Device Manager, after the search I get told
I already have the latest drivers.

AIUI, a hardware driver converts the data passed to it by the software
into whatever format that hardware uses, and passes it to the hardware.
There could be timing issues when a given video chip is used with
different hardware combinations, in which case a driver may have to be
tweaked. That would account for the different driver versions.

Can anyone explain the apparent contradiction please?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Unless you have problems, leave well enough alone.


I'd have thought my opening sentence sort of implied that I WAS pursuing
a problem?

"During a forum discussion elsewhere about video performance..."

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Sorry, I didn't infer that you have a problem. I inferred that you are
curious about whether different drivers entail or deliver different
video performance. So what is your video performance problem?

As per my reply to Vanguard just now, it's OT for these two forums,
concerning my NLE. Arises for several but not ALL of us with almost
identical PC's, using Intel's HF 530.

FWIW, I haven't updated drivers on this 4-year-old box since it was new.
My media players handle everything I throw at them. NB the plural: what
one can't handle, another can. I infer that most video performance
problems are caused by software and/or codecs, not hardware drivers.

Have a good day,

You too!

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:


Yes, although past tense applies now. The updated driver has
unfortunately *not fixed it. For me or another friend on the same forum
with an almost identical PC as mine and the same video problem. (With
the way our NLE, Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium, handles the HDR effect,
if you're curious.) Even though the i5 user does not have the problem.
So we're still looking, although I'd have thought the chipset driver low
on the list of possible causes?


There is an article here, which casually mentions that
HDR is supported on Kaby Lake.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computi...by-lake-s-hdr/

"The latest rumor surrounding Intel’s upcoming processors
based on the Kaby Lake-S architecture is that the integrated
graphics will support High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging"

What you could investigate, is whether Magix has a preference
to turn off HDR rendering on the screen. So that any emulated
effect could be eliminated.

Paul

Terry Pinnell wrote:

Yes, although past tense applies now. The updated driver has
unfortunately *not fixed it. For me or another friend on the same forum
with an almost identical PC as mine and the same video problem. (With
the way our NLE, Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium, handles the HDR effect,
if you're curious.) Even though the i5 user does not have the problem.
So we're still looking, although I'd have thought the chipset driver low
on the list of possible causes?
...
Did you read my post yesterday reporting that I had installed the latest
driver?

Twas in another subthread, missed it, sorry.

Although both you and your friend are using Windows 10, are you both
using the 64-bit version of Windows 10?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1777473,00.asp
"... a native 64-bit video-editing program"

http://www.magix.com/us/movie-edit-pro/premium/
"You require a 64-bit version of one the following operating systems:
Windows 10, 8, 7"

You'd expect a 64-bit only program's installer to NOT allow its install
on a 32-bit version of Windows.

As to your original topic, you now probably have the latest available
driver. No, it may not be listed by Intel using the same version as for
the package of driver files. For example, the video package version
shown my AMD Catalyst and Device Manager is 15.20.1062.1004. However,
looking at the versions of the actual driver files show varying versions
(aka file versions, not package versions) only some of which match on
the package version. So it depends on which version you are looking at:
the package version (fileset) or the file version(s).

https://www.extremetech.com/computin...should-you-buy
"The Core i7 features quad-cores with Hyper-Threading enabled and
Intel¢s HD Graphics 530 solution. The Core i5 family offers quad-cores
without Hyper-Threading, and either HD Graphics 530 or 510 GPUs."

So the difference is whether or not there is hyperthreading and which
video controller is included on the chip. I had assumed you (i7) and
your buddy (i5) had the same video driver. Maybe not if he has an i5
with the HD 510 video controller.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422874,00.asp

If hyperthreading is the differentiating factor then maybe you disabling
it for your i7 might show if the Magix program then works okay. Maybe
Magix doesn't know how to handle virtual cores. Users have complained
that enabling hyperthreading results in BSODs or unstable systems
(probably due to a defective CPU) or even decreased performance for
multi-threaded processes (e.g., [M]SQL) when compared with
hyperthreading off. There can be racing problems or deadlocks in code
with hyperthreading (not a defect of the processor but in the code, like
not handling race conditions between threads). Thread stalling is
another problem with hyperthreading. I've seen some forum posts where
users complained that Magix did not use all cores in the multi-core
processor and also did not use hyperthreading. To me, hyperthreading is
like GPU acceleration in web browsers: sometimes helps but if not then
disable it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading.

Some users report that stutter disappears after disabling
hyperthreading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/comment...utter_problem/

Maybe disabling the i7's extra features so it has only those in the i5
will get Magix to operate properly.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/art...n-application/
"Hyper-Threading Technology cannot have performance expectations
equivalent to that of multi-processing where all the processor resources
are replicated."

So reports from users that performance was worse with hyperthreading
enabled is even supported in Intel's description. Simulated hardware
isn't as fast as real hardware.

If it's a driver issue, you might have to test prior versions of the
driver for your CPU (i7) to see if one works. As I mentioned, the
latest driver is not necessarily the best one. For some programs
(games), I had to find the latest prior driver that still worked with
them. The latest video driver wasn't the best one and sometimes the
worst one.

Just to be sure, are you you (i7) and your friend (i5) using the HD
graphics controller within the CPU? Or might your friend have a video
card? The embedded Intel video graphics is particularly strong in the
graphics arena. Performance of CPU-embedded graphics is very low.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...u=Intel+HD+530
https://www.futuremark.com/hardware/...ics+530/review

For graphics editing, I would think you would want something better than
what is essentially a backup GPU: you revert back to it when your video
card dies and until you get a replacement.