Intel Gen11 Reportedly Takes iGPU Performance To Another Level

Benchmarks of Intel's Gen11 iGPU (Integrated Graphics Processing Unit) in GFXBench and CompuBench have finally surfaced. The mysterious processor with Iris Plus Graphics 940 reportedly blows past other 15W chips, such as the Intel's own Core i5-8250U and AMD's Ryzen 2700U and Ryzen 5 2400G offerings.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Intel touts up to one teraflop of 32-bit and two teraflops of 16-bit floating point performance with its Gen11 iGPU. The chipmaker's goal is to provide a decent gaming experience for its consumers. This, in the long run, can lead to more budget-friendly laptops as manufacturers wouldn't have to incorporate third-party discrete entry-level graphics cards, such as Nvidia's MX-series.

As always, you should take synthetic benchmarks (and unofficial ones, at that) with a grain of salt as they are not a definite indication of real-world performance. However, you can't deny that Gen11 posts some very promising results.

Iris UHD Graphics 620 (Gen9) vs. Iris Plus Graphics 940 (Gen11)

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Tests Type Core i5-8250U with UHD Graphics 620 Intel 0000 with Iris Plus Graphics 940 Difference
Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen 1621 3453 113.02%
Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen 637 1403 120.25%
Car Chase Offscreen 1697 2910 71.48%
1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 Offscreen 1327 2459 85.31%
Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen 2428 3855 58.77%
Manhattan Offscreen 3692 7063 91.31%
T-Rex Offscreen 6786 10232 50.78%
Tessellation Offscreen 9217 14541 57.76%
ALU 2 Offscreen 5348 12411 132.07%
Driver Overhead 2 Offscreen 6692 4433 -33.76%
Texturing Offscreen 9078 17685 94.81%
Overall 76.53%

On average, Gen11 is up to 77.41 percent faster than Gen9 with the onscreen tests in the GFXBench 5.0 benchmark.

AMD Vega 10 vs. Iris Plus Graphics 940 (Gen11)

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Tests Type Ryzen 7 2700U with Vega 10 Intel 0000 with Iris Plus Graphics 940 Difference
Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen N/A 3453 N/A
Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen N/A 1403 N/A
Car Chase Offscreen 1714 2910 69.78%
1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 Offscreen 1339 2459 83.64%
Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen 2145 3855 79.72%
Manhattan Offscreen 2291 7063 208.29%
T-Rex Offscreen 5576 10232 83.50%
Tessellation Offscreen 13606 14541 6.87%
ALU 2 Offscreen 11918 12411 4.14%
Driver Overhead 2 Offscreen 3680 4433 20.46%
Texturing Offscreen 16025 17685 10.36%
Overall 62.97%

The results show that Gen11 performs, on average, around 62.97 percent faster than AMD Vega 10 graphics. However, that's due to the inconsistency with the Manhattan test where Gen11 puts in an unusually high score. If we omit the Manhattan result, the performance difference drops to 44.81 percent.

AMD Vega 11 vs. Iris Plus Graphics 940 (Gen11)

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Tests Type Ryzen 5 2400G with Vega 11 Intel 0000 with Iris Plus Graphics 940 Difference
Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen 3901 3453 -11.48%
Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen 1651 1403 -15.02%
Car Chase Offscreen 3115 2910 -6.58%
1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 Offscreen 2328 2459 5.63%
Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen 3544 3855 8.78%
Manhattan Offscreen 3386 7063 108.59%
T-Rex Offscreen 11113 10232 -7.93%
Tessellation Offscreen 17803 14541 -18.32%
ALU 2 Offscreen 15353 12411 -19.16%
Driver Overhead 2 Offscreen 4012 4433 10.49%
Texturing Offscreen 27824 17685 -36.44%
Overall 1.69%

If we look at the average result, Gen11 outperforms AMD Vega 11 by around 1.69 percent. Once again, the Manhattan test boosts Gen11's total score. Discarding the Manhattan result actually puts AMD Vega 11 back on top with a 9 percent advantage.

Overall the results are impressive and imply that Intel's next generation of integrated graphics could be a game changer that puts the pressure on AMD's Ryzen chips with integrated graphics and Nvidia's low-end discrete graphics cards for notebooks. According to Intel's latest estimates, the Ice Lake processors packing Gen11 graphics should come to market in time for the holiday shopping season.

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Zhiye Liu
News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician

Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.