Intel’s latest Gen12 Xe integrated graphics are nearly as fast as NVIDIA’s latest budget notebook dGPU, the MX450. This was concluded from the tests conducted by Chinese outlet, Zhuanlan. The Gen12 iGPUs powering the newly launched Tiger Lake mobile CPUs were compared against AMD’s Renoir APUs as well as the latest dGPU offerings from NVIDIA.
In 3DMark 11, the delta between the 96EU Gen12 iGPU and the MX450 was between 30-35% but it falls to 20% and -10% (yes, it was faster) in Sky Diver and Firestrike, respectively, thanks to the improved geometry units on Gen12.
In Unigine Heaven and Valley, the MX450 was less than 10% faster than the Core i7-1165G7. Superposition again sees the integrated Intel GPU beating NVIDIA’s MX450 (at least at 1080p), both the 25W and 30W variants. Overall, the base variant of the MX450 is just 5-6% faster than the top-end G7 Gen12 graphics powering the Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake CPU. Compared to the 7nm Vega 8 graphics on Renoir, Xe is around 50-60% faster in these synthetic benchmarks.
In gaming benchmarks, the numbers don’t change by much. In Left for Dead 2, the MX450 (25W) is just 5-8% faster than the Core i7-1165G7 while the Ryzen 7 4900H trails the latter by ~30%. In Witcher 3, the Gen12 iGPU is just 8% and 25% slower than the 8Gbps and 14 Gbps variants of the MX450, respectively. The Ryzen 9 4900H is significantly slower here, lagging behind the Core i7 by more than 60%. Watch Dogs 2 is the only game where the MX450 shows a notable performance benefit over the Gen12 integrated graphics with a lead of 35-40%. This title just doesn’t seem to like Tiger Lake as the top-end Renoir chip is just 20% slower than the Core i7 in this benchmark.
