Intel Linux Patch Said to Improve Graphics Efficiency up to 43%

A new series of patches for Intel’s Linux P-state driver improves the efficiency of the integrated graphics by up to 43% and performance by up to 15%, as tested on an Ice Lake system.

Intel’s open source driver team sent out a series of patches on Tuesday for the Intel P-State driver meant to improve efficiency of the GPU for I/O-bound workloads, according to Phoronix. The P-state was tuned for better CPU efficiency in TDP-limited scenarios. This would give more power to the GPU.

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On an Ice Lake-based Razer Blade Stealth laptop, the raw graphics performance reportedly improved by about 15% while the performance per watt improved by around 43%. In our Razer Blade Stealth review, where the laptop ran a 25W Ice Lake CPU, we found the machine suitable for mainstream games, like League of Legends, Rocket League, Dota 2 and Overwatch, with it running Overwatch at up to 46 frames per second (fps) at 1080p resolution and Ultra settings and 56 fps in Dirt 3 at the 1080p and Medium settings. 

However, Intel noted that the results may vary substantially with different platform. 

"Particularly the throughput results may vary substantially from one platform to another depending on the TDP budget and the balance of load between CPU and GPU," Intel wrote.

A detailed explanation is available here.