Intel's Iris Xe discrete desktop graphics performance is exactly where you'd expect

An ASUS DG1-4G graphics card was apparently tested on Basemark's GPU benchmark and the score has been dug up by Twitter user 'APISAK'. The test was run on 11th March using the latest Iris Xe driver version 27.20.100.9316. The ASUS DG1-4G is one of the two models that'll feature Intel's Iris Xe discrete desktop graphics (DG1) and is based on the Xe LP architecture built upon the company's 10nm SuperFin process. The graphics card was tested using the Vulkan API paired with with an Intel Core i3-10100F, which is part of Intel's Comet Lake-S lineup of processors. An ASUS PRIME H410M-A was the motherboard used and is one of the very few boards that support intel's Iris Xe desktop graphics.

In the Basemark GPU Vulkan test, the medium quality preset was used and the ASUS DG1-4G has scored 17,289 points, which is comparable to a Radeon RX 550. The latter is AMD's entry-level Polaris-based graphics card and it has put up 17,619 points.

The Basemark GPU benchmark is based on the company's in-house Rocksolid graphics engine and the Medium preset that was used in the test evaluates performance under the following metrics:

• 1920 x 1080 render resolution,
• 2048 x 2048 texture resolution,
• up to ~0.7 million triangles per frame, and
• up to ~2000 draw calls per frame.

The medium preset allocates 1GB of VRAM which should be no problem for the 4GB of 4266MHz LPDDR4 memory buffer available with the Iris Xe desktop graphics.

The ASUS DG1-4G is a passively-cooled silent model which is 173mm long and 110mm wide. It features three display outputs that consist of a single DisplayPort, an HDMI and also a DVI-D. Iris Xe features AV1 decode acceleration - something which other lower-end desktop GPUs currently lack - and should be useful for modern Home Theatre PCs (HTPC) or Media PCs. It also supports DP4a instruction for deep-learning inference acceleration and could be helpful as a cheap accelerator for AI and ML workloads to assist the CPU. Sadly though, as of now, Intel says that DG1 will only be sold through OEMs and system integrators.

Its larger cousin, the Iris Xe HPG gaming GPU was recently teased with a bunch of cryptic messages built into the teaser. The Xe HPG will reportedly pack up to 512 Execution Units (EUs) which is nearly six and a half times that of the DG1 (80 EUs), and come with 16GB of memory.

Source: APISAK (Twitter)