Intel announced its Iris Xe MAX dedicated GPU and demonstrated their new technology called Deep Link. In addition, the performance was filtered in 3DMark, which gave excellent results and put Intel’s GPU on a par with the NVIDIA MX450.
Deep Link basically allows us to use integrated graphics, dedicated graphics, and the processor simultaneously for different workloads. This is an innovative feature of the new platform that allows Intel to connect not only the integrated and dedicated GPU but also the CPU itself.
With Deep Link’s Dynamic Power Share feature, Intel says it can redirect all power and heat resources to the CPU when the Iris Xe Max is idle, which can result in 20% better CPU performance for video encoding compared to an 11th generation Core i7 notebook with Nvidia’s GeForce MX350 graphics from Nvidia.
Unfortunately, the Deep Link function is not available for PC games. Therefore it will not be possible to run the equivalent of a mini-SLI configuration in a notebook.
The Intel Iris Xe MAX graphics are based on the same Xe-LP microarchitecture used for the Intel Iris Xe graphics on Intel Core 11th generation mobile processors.
Intel benchmarks show the Xe MAX GPU outperforms the NVIDIA MX350 for graphics, gaming, and AI-specific workloads. The Xe MAX chip, formerly known as DG1, has 96 EU, which gives a total of 768 shaders and a frequency of up to 1.65 GHz.
It also features a dedicated LPDDR4X memory interface with 4 GB of memory at 68 GB/s bandwidth and uses PCI-Express 4.0 x4 to communicate with the processor. In addition, Xe MAX uses a 128-bit memory interface.
While Intel focused on workload performance for content creation, the company demonstrated that notebooks with Iris Xe Max graphics can deliver better or stable 1080p gaming performance compared to the GeForce MX350.
The graphs show that the Xe MAX GPU performs better in games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Hitman 2, Metro Exodus, and Grid 2019, while the MX350 outperforms or equals Intel in games such as Borderlands 3 and Gears Tactics.
Is Iris Xe MAX better than the NVIDIA MX450?
In addition to the benchmarks published by Intel, the Bilibili website showed the very good performance of the Iris Xe MAX GPU in 3DMark. The next test gave a result of 1826 points in 3DMark Time Spy and 6611 points in 3DMark Fire Strike.
As a reference, the Nvidia GeForce MX450 scores around 1680/6833 points, so Intel was able to simplify development and save costs for all companies that Tiger Lake supplies CPUs to. To give us a better idea: The GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile also lags behind with 1603.5 points in Time Spy and 5453.5 points in Fire Strike.