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What just happened? Intel claims that its Arc Xe2 integrated graphics in Lunar Lake processors are faster than the competing iGPUs found in AMD and Qualcomm chips. Xe2 is Intel's latest integrated graphics technology, derived from the company's next-gen "Battlemage" Arc discrete graphics platform, which is expected to launch in early 2025.
According to Intel, Xe2 will provide Lunar Lake Core Ultra 9 288V laptops with a 31 percent performance boost compared to the Core Ultra 7 155H Meteor Lake processor, and a 68 percent uplift over the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 SoC. Intel also claimed that the new graphics chip will be approximately 16 percent faster than the iGPU in AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Strix Point processor, and deliver up to 30 perfect faster ray tracing performance.
Team Blue also released real-world gaming benchmarks, demonstrating nearly 100 FPS at 1080p medium settings in F1 2024 and more than 200 frames per second in Roblox. The company noted that gamers will benefit from XeSS support in select titles, which is expected to provide a performance boost ranging from 25 percent to 61 percent.
However, Intel acknowledged that Xe2 may not outperform its competitors in all real-world scenarios. According to data from Team Blue, AMD's Strix Point laptop achieved higher frame rates than the Lunar Lake PC in popular games like Rocket League, Grand Theft Auto V, and DOTA 2. The company also included benchmarks from titles such as Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Civilization VI to highlight Lunar Lake's purported advantages over AMD's Strix Point and the Snapdragon X Elite.
So far, gaming handhelds have been dominated by AMD, with companies such as Nintendo, Asus, and Ayaneo using Ryzen CPUs in devices like the Switch, ROG Ally, and Air, respectively. However, this landscape is about to change with the introduction of the Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake CPU, which will power the upcoming MSI Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld.
In the meantime, the latest leaked CPU-Z benchmarks indicate that the upcoming Core Ultra 7 265K Arrow Lake processor delivers strong performance in both single-core and multi-core workloads. The chip scored 919 points in the single-core test, surpassing the 902 points achieved by the Core i9-14900K and the 914 points scored by the Ryzen 9 9950X. However, in multi-core tests, the Core Ultra 7 265K's score of 16,274 points slightly trailed behind those of the Core i9-14900K and Ryzen 9 9950X.