Intel Arc 7-Core iGPU vs Intel Graphics 4-Core iGPU (Meteor / Arrow Lake)

Intel Arc 7-Core iGPU

The Intel Arc iGPU with 7 cores is an integrated graphics adapter based on the Xe LPG architecture (similar to the dedicated Arc GPUs, but with a focus on efficiency). It offers 7 of the 8 Xe cores (112 Xe Vector Engines), 7 raytracing units, 7 samplers and probably also 4 pixel backends.

The Arc name may only be used if at least 16 GB RAM is used in dual channel mode. Otherwise, the iGPU is only called "Intel Graphics" and is also significantly slower.

According to Intel, performance has been doubled compared to the previous generation (probably still in Alder Lake).

The iGPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (probably DX 12_2 like the desktop Arc GPUs). The graphics unit also supports XeSS AI Super Sampling.

The media engine of Meteor Lake is in the SOC tile and supports up to 8k60 10-bit HDR encode and decode of MPEG2, AVC, VP9, HEVC and AV1. The display engine is also in the SoC tile and supports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 20G with up to 8K60 HDR.

The GPU Tile of the Meteor Lake chip is manufactured at TSMC on 5nm (5N process).

Intel Graphics 4-Core iGPU (Meteor / Arrow Lake)

The Intel Graphics iGPU (Device ID 8086 7D41) with 4 cores is an integrated graphics card based on the Xe LPG architecture (similar to the dedicated Arc GPUs, but with a focus on efficiency). It offers 4 Xe cores (64 Xe vector engines), 4 ray tracing units, 4 samplers and 2 pixel backends. It can be found in Meteor Lake-U CPUs (like the Core Ultra 7 165U) and Arrow Lake CPUs (like Core Ultra 7 255U or Core Ultra 9 285HX).

In contrast to the more powerful variant with 8 cores in the H Meteor Lake CPUs, the small variant is not allowed to use the Arc name.

The iGPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (probably DX 12_2 like the desktop Arc GPUs). The graphics unit also supports XeSS AI Super Sampling.

The media engine of Meteor Lake is in the SOC tile and supports up to 8k60 10-bit HDR encode and decode of MPEG2, AVC, VP9, HEVC and AV1. The display engine is also in the SoC tile and supports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 20G with up to 8K60 HDR.

The GPU Tile of the Meteor Lake chip is manufactured at TSMC in 5nm (5N process).