The Iris Xe Max (DG1) GPU, which is already shipping to OEMs, has graced the grounds of Geekbench 5. The submissions (via Tum_Apisak) show that the looming GPU's performance is somewhere along the lines of AMD's Radeon RX 550.
Intel has been away from the discrete graphics market for a considerable amount of time now, and the Irix Xe Max marks the chipmaker's return. The GPU comes equipped with 96 Execution Units (EUs) that boil down to 768 shader cores. The original Iris Xe Max test platform had the GPU with 3GB of GDDR6 memory. However, the same GPU has appeared in Asus' upcoming VivoBook Flip 14 laptop with 4GB of LPDDR4X memory. It would appear that the Iris Xe Max can be configured with GDDR6 or LPDDR4X memory.
Both Iris Xe Max submissions painted the GPU with a maximum frequency of up to 1.5 GHz. It's base and boost clock speeds are uncertain at the moment. A previous sighting had the Iris Xe Max clocked up to 1.55 GHz, but that could just be the result of manual overclocking.
Intel Iris Xe Max Specifcations
| GPU | Geekbench 5 OpenCL Score | Shading Units | Boost Clock (MHz) | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce MX350 | 13,832 | 640 | 1,468 | 2GB GDDR5 |
| Radeon RX 550X | 12,598 | ? | ? | ? |
| Iris Xe Max* | 11,885 | 768 | 1,500 | 3GB |
| GeForce MX330 | 11,162 | 384 | 1,594 | 2GB GDDR5 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
Geekbench 5 isn't the end-all-be-all benchmark for graphics. In the meantime, it's what's available. In any event, we should approach the Iris Xe Max's results with caution: The final product could perform better, or even worse.
The Iris Xe Max never aimed to compete in the performance bracket; therefore, it isn't a big shocker that the GPU barely beats Nvidia's GeForce MX330. The Geekbench 5 numbers showed that the Iris Xe Max was just 6.5% faster than the GeForce MX330. On the contrary, the GeForce MX350 delivered up to 16.4% higher performance than Intel's offering.
In comparison to the Radeon RX 550X, the two-year old AMD GPU outperformed the Iris Xe Max by up to 6%.
We suspect that Intel is creating a small, mobile ecosystem with its Tiger Lake chips, and that's where the Iris Xe Max's real value lies. When alone, the Iris Xe Max probably won't leave a dent on some of its rivals. However, if you were to combine the GPU with Tiger Lake's iGPU in a multi-GPU setup, that would be another story. Although the concept is unconfirmed, a pair of Xe GPUs have already come forth, proving its feasibility. The dual-GPU arrangement was sporting up to 192 EUs or 1,536 shader cores. That should be 96 EUs from the DG1 and 96 EUs from the Tiger Laker iGPU, so everything apparently falls into place.
The Acer Swift 3X, which is powered by 11th Generation Tiger Lake processors and Iris Xe Max graphics, is scheduled to debut in December. Thereby, it won't be long until we get to see what the Iris Xe Max is really made of.
