Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (Desktop)

Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics

The Intel Iris Xe MAX (DG1 Low Power - LP or iDG1LPDEV) is a dedicated PCIe 4.0 mobile entry-level graphics card with 96 execution units (EUs) based on the Gen 12 architecture. Compared to the integrated Intel Iris Xe in the Tiger Lake CPUs, the Xe MAX offers 4 GB dedicated LPDDR4x graphics memory (68 GB/s versus 56 GB/s for the MX350) and higher clock speeds of 1.65 GHz (vs. 1.35 GHz). Both support DP4A DLBoost instructions to speed up AI tasks and two media engines (including AV1 decoding in hardware). Currently the GPU is only available for Tiger Lake based laptops and offers some possibilities to use the iGPU and dGPU together (using the Deep Link software framework). The GPU uses hybrid graphics to turn off the Xe MAX when not in used (display ports are routed through the iGPU, but the Xe MAX features four dedicated display ports in comparison to the Nvidia GeForce MX350).

Furthermore, Intel supports to shift TDP between the two chips for better CPU performance or balancing graphics workloads.

The gaming performance is on average slightly better than a fast Intel Iris Xe iGPU with plenty of TDP and cooling headroom. There are even some games where the iGPU is faster thanks to Deep Link sharing power and cooling. Intel targets 1080p gaming with low to medium settings with the GPU and provided examples where the MAX is on par or better than a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX350. 

According to Intel, the GPU is mostly aimed at content creators that can make use of the additional compute units, AI (DP4a) acceleration or media encoders.

As the Iris Xe Graphics, the Xe MAX supports Variable Rate Shading, Adaptive Sync, Async Compute, DirectX 12.1, OpenGL 4.6 and OpenCL 2.

As the Tiger Lake CPUs, the Iris Xe MAX dGPU is manufactured in the modern 10nm SuperFin process at Intel. Intel aims the Max-GPU for laptops with a combined power budget of 35 Watt and up. The power consumption of the GPU alone is specified similar to the 25W of the GeForce MX350 (we guess including the graphics memory).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 is a mid-tier, Turing-based, desktop GPU. The GTX 1660 relies on the TU116 chip with 1,408 shader units, 48 ROPs, 88 TMUs and a 192-bit-wide memory bus (clocked at 2 GHz = 8 GHz effectively 12 GHz, bandwidth: up to 192.1 GB/s).

The TU116 chip and other Turing-based GPUs are produced using the 12-nm manufacturing process. However, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti does not offer the latest features such as DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and Real Time Ray Tracing. Nevertheless, there are some architectural improvements when it comes to floating point and integer performance. These operations can now be carried out simultaneously. Other notable features include Adaptive Shading, unified cache, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as H.265 encoding and decoding (PlayReady 3.0).

At Full HD resolution, the GeForce GTX 1660 is slightly faster than the old GeForce GTX 1060, but clearly slower than the old GeForce GTX 1070 (and GTX 1660 Ti). Therefore, the GTX1660 is well suited for demanding games of 2019 in 1080p and high - max details (see gaming benchmarks below).

The energy consumption of the GeForce GTX 1660 amounts to 120 watts (like the 1660 Ti or GTX 1060).