Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and AMD Ryzen 7 7840U have an iGPU-bound benchmarking rematch in Linux

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Following their previous CPU-only Linux benchmarking, Phoronix runs Meteor Lake Arc Graphics vs. RDNA 3 iGPUs on Linux

Meteor Lake iGPU benchmarks being run under Ubuntu Linux by Phoronix.com
Meteor Lake iGPU benchmarks being run under Ubuntu Linux by Phoronix.com (Image credit: Michael Larabel, Phoronix.com)

Just yesterday, we looked into Phoronix's 370 CPU benchmark run of the Core Ultra 7 155H and Ryzen 7 7840U under Linux. Phoronix has now followed up on this CPU testing with benchmarks now focused on iGPU performance, which start making the Intel CPU look a lot more compelling in Linux than it did prior. Both CPUs were (and are still) being tested in an Acer Swift Go 14 laptop (Intel) and a Framework laptop (AMD), respectively.

While the CPU benchmark results gave AMD a roughly 28% overall lead, things may dice out a little differently with the iGPUs involved.

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Phoronix's benchmarking run of Intel Meteor Lake's Arc iGPU performance.
Intel Meteor Lake Arc Graphics narrowly clear the Radeon 780M, becoming the most powerful Linux iGPU by a thin margin and outperforming Intel's last-gen by a whopping 62%. (Image credit: Michael Larabel, Phoronix.com)

With iGPUs in play, the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H reveals itself as holder of the iGPU performance crown under Ubuntu Linux. AMD isn't far behind, the Radeon 780M does indeed lose to Meteor Lake's Arc graphics by 8% on average. The Iris Xe graphics on the Core i7 1280P, meanwhile, are being hard-diffed by 62%, which is pretty nice.

While AMD is sure to retaliate, Intel's Arc iGPUs are starting to put up some real competition against AMD in this integrated GPU space.

When Phoronix shifts over to testing Intel iGPUs only in GPU compute benchmarks under Linux, the performance improvements over last-gen become even more clear. Arc graphics are now clearing Iris Xe graphics with an over two-fold improvement.

Finally, while CPU power consumption was higher for the Core Ultra 7 155H in CPU-bound testing, power consumption was actually lower than AMD for this CPU in this iGPU benchmark run. For more detailed data points on the tests run and particular workloads that favor AMD, consider Phoronix's full piece.

For now, it's fair to say that Meteor Lake Intel CPUs are looking a lot better for Linux now that we can see how much iGPU scaling has improved. Beating the Radeon 780M iGPU is pretty impressive, too, considering it's capable of powering modern ~1200p gaming experiences on devices like the ROG Ally.

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Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • -Fran-
    Wait, worse CPU but better iGPU?

    You know what that reminds me of? Trinity and all Pilediver based APUs.

    "But no, that's DIFFERENT!". Ok, sure.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    -Fran- said:
    Wait, worse CPU but better iGPU?
    Yes, though I think the Windows benchmarks might be a little more balanced between the Ryzen 7840U and the Core Ultra 7 155H:
    https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Swift-Go-14-review-The-Meteor-Lake-Core-Ultra-7-impresses-with-its-AI-core.783349.0.html
    The first few benchmarks all seem to favor Meteor Lake. It's not until you hit LibreOffice, R, and the AIDA64 synthetic benchmarks that the tide turns in favor of Ryzen.
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    Linux is missing the thread director, and I believe that is likely torpedoing the cpu benchmark comparison on the Linux system, I still fully expect Intel to lose to AMD on mobile, but not by the margins the first test showed. A lot of those losses may be from linux loading up the SOC e-cores when they have no business running high priority threads. As the linux Kernel adapts to this tiered computing hierarchy, the discrepancy chasm will close.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    cyrusfox said:
    Linux is missing the thread director,
    No, I'm pretty sure they added support for it in early 2022. It did lag the launch of Alder Lake, but not by a whole lot.

    cyrusfox said:
    I believe that is likely torpedoing the cpu benchmark comparison on the Linux system,
    Phoronix just posted a performance comparison of the same Meteor Lake laptop on Linux and Windows. I wish it also included the Ryzen 7840U, but alas it did not. Meteor Lake performed significantly better on Linux. In the conclusion, the author states:
    "This lead isn't as wide as we've seen on some higher core count systems but overall Linux had a strong showing in the CPU tests for the most part. This was good to see as there was some curiosity on whether the Linux kernel is behaving optimally yet for Meteor Lake CPUs but even with the single-threaded tests I didn't run into any awkward situations yet. Though with Linux results proving competitive, it does for the most part rule out Linux being to blame for the poor CPU performance benchmarks on Meteor Lake."

    Source: https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-meteorlake-windows-linux
    cyrusfox said:
    I still fully expect Intel to lose to AMD on mobile, but not by the margins the first test showed. A lot of those losses may be from linux loading up the SOC e-cores when they have no business running high priority threads.
    Agreed. I had similar thoughts. I also wondered if Meteor Lake's enhanced Thread Director might not be fully supported, although Intel is usually pretty good about getting all the necessary patches merged well in advance of new product launches.

    Still, I would not be surprised if some future patches make Meteor Lake a lot more competitive in Linux. We'll see.

    cyrusfox said:
    As the linux Kernel adapts to this tiered computing hierarchy, the discrepancy chasm will close.
    ARM has been doing big.Little for over a decade. Linux is the kernel Android uses. Alder Lake launched over 2 years ago. So, I think the kernel is most of the way up that learning curve.
    Reply