Intel has vastly improved its iGPUs, and it is not about to lose the laptop market. The Intel Iris Xe MAX beats its two rivals and sets up as an incredible option.
Many may not care about the news, but an incredible war is raging in the notebook market. NVIDIA is taking a toll on its “MX” series, which is being overtaken by AMD APUs. That said, Intel strikes back with its Iris Xe, which have improved a lot.
Intel Iris Xe MAX, a not so secondary GPU
It is not an iGPU, but a small GPU focused on notebooks and carries 96 execution units , which are the same GPU cores as the 11th generation Tiger Lake. Their architecture is Xe-LP and they are manufactured using Intel’s 10nm SuperFin process .
With this, it equips 768 shaders , a figure that is far from gaming purposes. The idea of Iris Xe MAX has to do with ultra-light notebooks that are powered by Tiger Lake. In this way, Intel offers the perfect performance-efficiency ecosystem.
Before, we saw laptops with Intel integrated graphics and a discrete GPU alongside for heavier tasks. So Intel brings out this Xe MAX to work with Iris Xe graphics simultaneously . What we find curious about this movement is that both GPUs come with the same silicon. Therefore, we will have an iGPU (Intel Iris Xe) and a dGPU (Intel Iris Xe MAX) in some notebooks with Tiger Lake.
Intel does not focus these graphics cards for video games, but for content creation and video encoding. However, let’s see its performance, which leaves no one indifferent.
Beats AMD and NVIDIA in 3DMark
From China they have had access to an Acer Swift S3X , a laptop equipped with this graphics card. The GPU-Z data they have provided us is not exact, but the tests give us an idea of what AMD and NVIDIA are up against.
Starting with 3DMark Performance, the Iris Xe MAX scores 1826 points in Time Spy and 6611 points in Fire Strike. That said, OvO, who has been in charge of testing it, assures that the drivers did not work very well, having problems with Time Spy.
In terms of performance, the Iris Xe MAX would be on par with a GTX 1050 , GTX 970M and MX450 , according to Notebookcheck . On the other hand, we have had access to several Intel Iris Xe MAX benchmarks, which will not leave anyone indifferent.
Another 3DMark test at FullHD and with DirectX 12 places it above its direct rivals. Interestingly, it is outmatched by the Iris Xe integrated graphics, but drivers need to be emphasized again.
Although it is not intended for games, it has been tested in Forza Horizon 4 with an adapted configuration. Renoir can’t handle this little GPU, and NVIDIA’s MX range doesn’t even appear. The Fortnite was also tested , but the MSI Modern 15 was much better with an MX350.
We finish with Borderlands 3 , where Iris Xe MAX achieves a score almost identical to that of MX350. It is confirmed that this dGPU is ready to give 100% in hard tasks.
What do you think of the performance of this dGPU? Do you think the next AMD laptops will surpass it?
