Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU vs Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU

The Intel Arc iGPU with 8 cores (ID 7D55) is an integrated graphics adapter in Meteor Lake SoCs based on the Xe LPG architecture (similar to the dedicated Arc GPUs, but with a focus on efficiency). It offers all 8 Xe cores (128 Xe vector engines), 8 ray tracing units, 8 samplers and 4 pixel backends.

The Arc name may only be used if at least 16 GB RAM is used in dual channel mode. Otherwise, the only iGPU is 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 UHD Graphics 620

The Intel UHD Graphics 620 (GT2) is an integrated graphics unit, which can be found in various ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processors of the Kaby Lake Refresh generation (8th generation Core). Compared to the similar named Intel HD Graphics 620 in the 2016 Kaby Lake CPUs, only the name changed from HD to UHD. It is clocked with up to 1.150 MHz and therefore 100 MHz higher than the old HD Graphics 620 (max. 1.050 MHz) and offer a comparable performance. Due to its lack of dedicated graphics memory or eDRAM cache, the HD 620 has to access the main memory (2x 64bit DDR3/DDR4).

Performance

The exact performance of the UHD Graphics 620 depends on various factors like L3 cache size, memory configuration (DDR3/DDR4) and maximum clock rate of the specific model and as is similar to the Intel HD Graphics 620 and Intel HD Graphics 630. Compared to the average HD Graphics 620, the UHD graphics profits from the quad-core CPU a bit in our gaming benchmarks. Therefore, should be positioned between a GeForce 910M and 920M dedicated graphics card from Nvidia. For games, the drivers however are not that fast updated and tested as with GeForce graphics cards. In our tests, the UHD 620 is most suited for casual games like Team Fortress 2, Rocket League or Farming Simulator 17. See below for a list of modern games tested with various models.

Features

The revised video engine now supports H.265/HEVC Main10 profile in hardware with 10 bit colors. Furthermore, Googles VP9 codec can also be hardware decoded. The first models do not support HDCP 2.2 and therefore Netflix 4K. This was added with the new models in 2017 and beginning of May 2017 also the older CPU models like the i3-7100U are now shipped with a new S-Spec Code that supports HDCP 2.2. HDMI 2.0 however is still only supported with an external converter chip (LSPCon).

Power Consumption

The UHD Graphics 620 can be found in mobile processors specified at 15 W TDP and is therefore suited for compact laptops and ultrabooks. The power consumption during playing The Witcher 3 (with an external monitor) was comparable to a Intel HD Graphics 620 based laptop and on the lowest end of all of our measurements. Dedicated GPUs, like the GeForce 940MX, needed a lot more power.