Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs vs Intel Arc A580

The Intel Xe Graphics G7 (Tiger-Lake U GPU with 96 EUs) is a integrated graphics card in the high end Tiger-Lake U CPUs (15 - 28 Watt). It is using the new Xe architecture (Gen12) and was introduced in September 2020. The GPU clocks with a base clock speed (guaranteed) of 400 MHz in all CPUs and can boost up to 1340 MHz (i7-1185G7). The slowest variant offers only 1100 MHz boost (i5-1130G7, 12 Watt TDP).

The performance depends on the TDP settings of the laptop and the used cooling. First informations show that the chip can be configured at 12 and 28 Watt TDP default (as the Ice Lake-U chips) and the performance should be around a dedicated GeForce MX350 in 3DMark benchmarks. For gaming we are expecting a bit worse performance due to the missing dedicated graphics memory and driver support. Many games e.g. had problems when testing the various laptops (e.g. Horizon Zero Dawn or Cyberpunk 2077 did not start or were crashing - see list below). Less demanding games like the Mass Effect Legendary Edition ran in medium settings fine. Compared to the older Ice Lake Iris Plus G7 GPU, the new Tiger Lake GPU should be approximately twice as fast. Therefore, the iGPU is still only for lowest graphical settings and low resolutions in demanding games.

The Tiger Lake SoCs and therefore the integrated GPU are manufactured in the modern 10nm+ (10nm SuperFin) process (improved 10nm process) at Intel and therefore should offer a very good efficiency.

The Intel Arc A580 is an affordable mid-range desktop GPU and is manufactured using the 6 nm process at TSMC. The Intel Arc A580 is also equipped with the DG2-512 graphics chip for the graphics processor, although this only has 3,072 shader units. The VRAM is based on 8 GB GDDR6 with a 256-bit interface (16 Gbps, 512 GB/s). This makes the Intel Arc A580 the third fastest graphics card model from Intel.

Features

Based on the Alchemist architecture, the Intel Arc A580 can rely on the same features as an Intel Arc A750 or an Intel Arc A770. Intel is extremely well positioned in the price range up to 200 euros with the Arc A580. AMD and Nvidia hardly have any suitable models in their portfolios in this price range. Features such as ray tracing are also supported and upscaling technologies such as XeSS can compete with DLSS and FSR. The latter can also be used on Intel graphics cards due to the open standard. With support for AV1, the graphics card is also interesting for content creators. Only the significantly more expensive Ada Lovelace models from Nvidia and the RDNA3 GPUs from AMD are currently capable of hardware-side encoding and decoding with the new codec.

Performance

The performance of the Intel Arc A580 is comparable to an AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT. The Intel Arc A580 can also keep up relatively well with an Intel Arc A750 in the internal duel. Newer games are somewhat more suited to the Intel Arc graphics cards. Nevertheless, many games can now be played well on Intel graphics cards and can be adapted well thanks to the constant driver improvements.

Power consumption

The power consumption of the Intel Arc A580 is estimated by the manufacturer at 175 watts (TGP). In terms of efficiency, however, the Intel Arc A580 is not convincing. Intel is at a disadvantage here compared to AMD and Nvidia. Whether this will change with the successor aka "Battlemage" remains to be seen.