Intel’s Iris Xe Max GPUs appear to be the company’s response to Nvidia’s RTX 30 series, which plenty of laptop brands proudly showed off at CES 2021. Nvidia graphic cards are, of course, widely known for their gaming prowess, so do the Iris Xe Max GPUs come remotely close? Well, despite Intel stating they’ve been made for gaming and content creation, the simple answer is “no,” as Notebookcheck reports.
The Iris Xe Max dedicated GPUs, also known as DG1, have been specifically optimized to pair with 11th Generation Tiger Lake Intel Core processors, to give thin and light laptops an extra boost in graphics and performance. While supposedly proposing higher frame rates up to 1080p resolution, they cannot compete with the power delivered by Nvidia’s RTX 30 GPUs.
Systems with integrated Iris Xe Max GPUs include the Acer Swift 3, Asus Vivobook Flip TP470 and Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2 in 1, which aren’t exactly the go-to laptops when it comes to high-end gaming. Still, games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, World of Tanks and even Assassin’s Creed Odyssey are all playable, even though certain games run better on previous Iris Xe integrated GPUs.
The Iris Xe Max isn’t actually close to Nvidia’s 1650 Ti. In fact, it’s closer to Nvidia’s GeForce MX250. Despite Intel boldly stating it will bring that much-need gaming performance, it’s actually more suited for content creation than anything else.
Deep Link
The Iris Xe Max GPUs come with a unique feature called Deep Link, which brings power from both the Iris C+Xe Max GPU and Intel’s Tiger Lake CPU processor (hence why it’s been optimized for it). This means tasks such as video encoding, including converting videos to 1080p or 4K, are a lot faster than higher-end gaming GPUs such as Nvidia’s GTX 20 series. It also offers AI-enhanced content creation and dynamic power-sharing.
Deep Link and Iris Xe Max’s other handy features work with certain third-party software, including Topaz Labs' Gigapixel AI.
These chips exactly the performance mainstream gamers are looking for, which means PC gamers won’t be flocking to get the three aforementioned laptops. However, Intel is already rumoured to be working on a DG2 set to be released in 2021, which could bring better gaming performance that can match its Nvidia and AMD competition.
